List of Physical Visualizations
and Related Artifacts

2014 – Data Clothing: Dresses Show Air Pollution

  

Laura Perovich explored the concept of data-driven clothes as part of her Master thesis at the MIT Media Lab. The fashion dresses above show the concentrations of 100 chemical contaminants measured in the air of a particular household (left image). Chemicals are mapped to small squares and relative concentration is mapped to square size. Squares are repeated to create lace patterns (right image shows the concentration of several factory-related pollutants).

In her thesis Laura Perovich discusses how data clothing may be used in the future to raise air pollution awareness:

One can imagine the print on your shirt changing as your chemical exposures change; your clothing changing shape and stiffness to become uncomfortable and encourage you to leave a heavily polluted area; or your clothing increasing its protectiveness by offering air filtration in polluted spaces. These types of projects would increase understanding by giving ongoing relevant information and prompting action based on these understandings. 

Sources:

  1. Laura Perovich (2014) Dressed in Data.
  2. Laura Perovich (2014) Data Experiences: novel interfaces for data engagement using environmental health data


Added by: Pierre Dragicevic, sent by: Yvonne Jansen. Category: Passive physical visualization  Tags: air pollution, data clothing, digital fabrication, environment, fabric, textile