PIXELBLOCKS CLOTHES TEST

MUCH easier to manoeuvre and they actually look better because compared to Lego bricks I can work on little details on a small scale. I think I may have found my material.

LEGO CLOTHES TEST

First attempt at making Lego inspired clothes with Lego bricks. As you can see, the pieces are way to chunky to fit around the doll's body.

LEGO VS. PIXELS

Lego bricks


Eboy


Invader

Invader, who prefers to remain anonymous, always appears masked in public to hide his identity. He is known to be ‘responsible for perhaps the most recognizable street art stunt of the last decades.’ (Lazarides, Artist - Invader, 2009)
He chose to use the pixelated aliens from Toshiro Nishikado’s infamous 1978 arcade game, Space Invaders. He started his invasion in Paris in 1998 by gluing the aliens made up of small coloured square tiles up on walls. These tiles represent pixels and his invasion has spread across 35 other cities around the world. One of the more prominent places where the tiles have been installed is on the Hollywood Sign. The first was placed on the letter D on December 31, 1999 and Invader has placed mosaics on other letters of the sign during his further trips to Los Angeles

This new form of street art is interesting to look at because it combines urban street culture and geek culture; the graffiti aspect of the urban culture and pixelated video game aspect of geek culture. During the email interview I conducted on 05 May 2010, when asked the reason why he chose Space Invaders as the main character of the project he answered: ‘I see them as a symbol of our era and the birth of modern technology, with video games, computers, the internet, mobile phones, hackers and viruses.’ (Invader, 05 May 2009)

Pixel art is something that emerged to the surface quite recently and is a great example to look at as it has a strong connection with geeks and technological revolution we experienced in past decades.
As the internet has entered our lives, many designers turned their vision to pixel graphics due to their fast-loading performance for overcoming bandwidth and web browser problems. (Lam, F., 2003)
A pixel is defined as a minute area of illumination on a computer screen, one of many from which an image is composed. (Compact Oxford English Dictionary, 1991) This smallest unit of geekiness is now used in pop art by artists such as Eboy. Eboy uses pixels to create his world designed for computer screen. He has collaborated with Adidas, Arena magazine, The Guardian, DKNY, MTV, Levi's Honda, etc. (Eboy, About, http://hello.eboy.com/eboy/about/)
Today’s pixel graphic not only caters for low-resolution desktop icons and low-bandwidth internet connections. It has become a new form of art. It is often used to illustrate clean, playful and impressive images as well as giving a certain kind of minimalistic expression…They are no longer framed inside digital boundaries and will extend to tangible media with a three-dimensional form in the near future. (Lam, 2003, p.6)

And I think i'll be interesting and fun to bring pixel's characteristics into real life, possibly into the fashion world because fashion is about visual presentation, and without pixels there won't be any images.

AWESOME

My new-found favourite designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac keeps amazing me. This is a 3D animation of his S/S 09, JC in the sky with diamonds collection starring Lego people as models wearing exact designs shown on the catwalk. Watching this has made me want to bring legoness into the fashion world.
Fashion meets geek.

JEAN-CHARLES DE CASTELBAJAC

While I was doing deeper research on fashion designers that find inspirations from geeks, I found Jean-Charles de Castelbajac (JC/DC). He debuted in 2008 and I absolutely love every single piece of clothes he created so far.
Especially for his S/S 2008 Collection, JC in the sky with diamonds, he displayed a series of clothes for both men and women heavily influenced by Lego bricks, Disney characters and superheroes. These elements are undeniable geek symbols and for this reason he immediately became my favourite designer. Here are some geek-influenced designs from his S/S 08 collection.









Click HERE to visit JC de Castelbajac's webpage

FASHION GEEKS

Nowadays Geeks aren't just people who plays video games on a friday night with a take-away pizza. The meaning has changed and now it's used to describe single-minded outsiders drawn to a wide range of creative pursuits who live beyond the main stream.

Viktor & Rolf

The Amsterdam duo, who in their formal and identical dress have continually drawn comparisons to artist-twosome Gilbert & George, exist in a kind of hybrid zone between fashion and art. Known for theatricality and the great sculptural quality of their clothes, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren shared a sense of alienation in their schooldays, but when they met in 1988 at the very start of their fashion studies, recognised a similar sensibility right away. Together they create designs, which are both cerebral and breathtaking, and the clever theatricality of their shows make conventional runway about as interesting as a visit to the dentist. VP

Read full article HERE

Many internationally acknowledged fashion designers seek inspiration from geeks.

For example, Luella Bartley, an English fashion designer and magazine editor, said her Spring/Summer collection presented at London Fashion Week 2008 was heavily inspired by Thora Birch’s geeky shabby chic character in Ghost World. Designer Catherine Holstein followed this trend and launched her Autumn/Winter 2009 collection featuring models in oversized thick rimmed glasses, neat tied back hair. She stated that her dresses were inspired by Nintendo pixilation. (Full article HERE)


Luella's The Ghost World inspired S/S 08 collection


Ugly Betty


Catherine Holstein's geek, nintendo inspired A/W 09 collection

BARBIE VS. LEGO

Barbie and Lego. I bet they are the two things one can easily associate his/her childhood with. It was almost a tradition for boys to get a box full of Lego while girls got their Barbie dolls dressed in whatever the theme was for Christmas presents. It would be interesting to combine these two because they are such great childhood/pop icons and yet haven't been seen at the same time.

DESIGNER TOYS

Designer toys is a term used to describe toys and other collectibles that are produced in limited editions and created by artists and design. They are a new platform for affordable Art & Design and have been embraced not only by geeks and kidults but also the mainstream.

Compact Oxford English Dictionary defines a kidult as: ‘an adult who like doing or buying thing that are intended for children. (Compact Oxford English Dictionary, 1991)
There is a very strong relationship between geeks, kidults and toys. The embrace of geekdom accelerated towards the end of the nineties with the digital revolution (The Electronic Beats, March 2008, p.48) and, about the same time, the first designer toys appeared. (Crawford, 2005, Introduction)

Collecting unrealistic figurines of their favourite super heroes and cartoon characters is one of the peculiarities of geeks. Jeremy from Jeremyville is an artist, toy designer, an animator and a self-proclaimed geek. This geek has collaborated with MTV, Coca Cola, Lego, Converse, Adidas, etc. Too good to be true for a geek? When I asked whether he saw himself as an outsider or an insider on an email interview on 04 May 2010 he answered:

I always have been the weird kid ever since I was a child, playing with Lego, model airplanes, spending hours commanding an army of toy soldiers in my bedroom with the curtains closed. Today I’m the result of that misspent childhood...I love weird people, freaks, outsiders, geeks, difference. I’m still a geek. I’ve just learnt to fake ‘normal. (Ville, 04 May 2010)


And if it was mainly graphic designers and illustrators who worked with this new form of art, fashion designers have recently shown their interests in them as well.


A Karl Lagerfeld toy


A set of Bearbrick by Tokidoki


A set of Bearbrick by Anna Sui

TETRIS

Tetris analógico // Analogical Tetris from Esferobite-DSK on Vimeo.

I was looking into game-reality relationship and found this video clip of Analog Tetris.

Click HERE to read more and see photos.

TRANSFORMERS VS. HUSSEIN CHALAYAN

Transformers were major when i was little and i used to play with them all the time. There was something very fascinating about the idea of changing shapes and creating something from nothing.

A Turkey-born, CSM graduate fashion designer Hussein Chalayan has taken this idea to the runway. For his S/S 07 collection, he presented clothes inspired from the past 111 years of fashion and chose to demonstrate this idea using robotic garments that moved around and shifted their form.

I think this is a really good example of 'geek meets fashion' because, even thought certain aspects of geek has been accepted into the mainstream, suck as thick framed glasses and rolled up trousers, Hussein's collection was something that took this idea further and used what geeks excel at in fashion to create his vision.

ADVENTURE ON THE RUNWAY

In this one specific episode of America's Next Top Model challenged the models to complete their catwalk on a runway with 2 swinging giant pendulums. This episode was harshly criticised for putting their TV rating before the contestants' safety, but I found it highly entertaining. and it reminded me of video games i used to play. 3 of the games that struck me were 'Excitebike', 'Frogger' and 'Antarctic Adventure' and i started thinking it'd be interesting to bring this arcade/adventure aspect into a catwalk.



Excitebike



Frogger



Antarctic Adventure


Does everyone see the similarity?

WORK IT

America's Next Top Model is a significant part of pop culture. I find this show interesting because of the models who compete in it. Not to disrespect their job, but most of them seem to know nothing about living an 'ordinary' life. Often they are very vulnerable to both physical and emotional challenges that a 'normal' person would either ignore or get over with with in a minute.
And when asked what the hard part of the job is a model says 'being a model is a lot harder than you think. like, you'll have to figure out which foot goes first, then you have to know when to stop to pose and count the seconds.' I am certain that there are some added aspects to the show to dramatise, well, the drama, but the truth is most of the models just don't seem to be living in the same world that i am in.

and as observed earlier, the geeks in The Big Bang Theory do not know much about the real world either. They live in their own world of comic books, sci-fi movies and computer games. I think it'd be interesting to look at how these 2 different worlds can co-exist.

THE BIG BANG THEORY

The Big Bang Theory is set in Pasadena, California. The show is about two Caltech prodigies in their 20s, one an experimental physicist, Leonard Hofstadter, and the other a theoretical physicist, Sheldon Cooper, who live across the hall from an attractive blonde waitress with show-biz aspirations, Penny,. Leonard and Sheldon's 'geekiness' and sheer intellect are contrasted for comic effect with Penny's social skills and common sense. Two equally geeky friends of theirs, Howard and Rajesh, are also main characters.
On the 14th episode of the first season, Penny calls Leonard 'a pathetic geek' for being so close to toys and comic books. What Sheldon points out to Penny later in the show in defence of his best friend Leonard is very interesting.

"You hypocrite. Little Miss 'Grown-ups don't play with toys', if I went into that apartment right now, would I not find Beanie Babies? Are you not an accumulator of Care Bears and My Little Ponies? And who is that Japanese feline I see frolicking on your shorts? Hello, Hello Kitty!

This suggests that male and female may have different ways of embracing our childhood memories, but what they have in common is that they keep artefacts near them to keep the memories alive.

DIRTY BEARS

Another Childhood symbol Care Bears have made it to fashion too, but naughtier and sexier.


Click the image to see what the bears are into these days. (Leggings from Ground Zero)

HELLO KITTY

Hello Kitty is another good example of how adults are still emotionally attached to certain things they cherished as children.

""Hello Kitty stands for the innocence and sincerity of childhood and the simplicity of the world," says Helen McCarthy, an author and expert on Japanese animation and comics. "Women and girls all over the world are happy to buy in to the image of the trusting, loving childhood in a safe neighbourhood that Hello Kitty represents. They don't want to let go of that image, so as they grow up, they hang onto Hello Kitty out of nostalgic longing – as if by keeping a symbolic object, they can somehow keep hold of a fragment of their childhood self."

And so now, although originally conceived as a character that would appeal to pre-teen girls, Hello Kitty is no longer regarded as being for children only. Along with the likes of Coca-Cola and Nike, she has become a brand phenomenon.

Her wide, white, slightly questioning face first adorned a clear plastic coin purse, which retailed for 240 yen (£1.17). Now you can buy almost anything stamped with the Hello Kitty brand, including towels, pencils, clothing, stationery and mobile phone covers, selling in more than 60 countries. Hello Kitty's popularity with adults is reflected in the changing products available: you can buy Hello Kitty-branded laptops and adult-sized underwear – you can buy more merchandise and charge it to your Hello Kitty credit card, cannily supplied by the Bank of America; really dedicated fans can register for their own @hellokitty.com email address at the website, Sanriotown.com." (click HERE to read the full article by The Independent)

YES, Hello Kitty bank card. Pretty awesome.

HELLO GAGA

The uber famous pop icon Lady GaGa rocks a bizarre series of photos for cult brand Hello Kitty, designed to celebrate the famous white cat's 35th birthday.

All photos from The DailyMail

GEEK SPEAK

Internet smiley :

Scott Fuhlman, a researcher at Carnegei Mellon University involved with early online newsgroups, creates the original internet smiley, :-). Fellow messageboard users turn to emoticons in order to clarify ambiguous postings, and unnecessary flaming are averted thanks to the new geek-speak. Geeks around the world rejoice in this dehumanised form of expression. (Neil Feineman, GeekChic, 2005)

Geeks have adapted for the internet as it was one of the only places where they could roam freely without worrying about getting their lunch money snatched. The geek population in the early stage of the internet was dominant. Well, they were smarter than the other.

PARLEZ-VOUS GEEK?

How To Speak Geek - The top video clips of the week are here
Geeks have developed new language for communication that takes place in the virtual place. It is not hard to see or read some non-geek using this language these days and it is now called the internet slang. The most commonly used ones being Lol, OMG, brb, WTF?!
This has inspired me with the project i just finished. These were to make science look cool and approachable to GCSE students.

BRAINSTORMING

Had a quick brainstorming of the word 'geek' and the words/ideas that interested me were :

Collectors

Toys

Kidults

Nostalgia

8/16 bit

Video games and video game characters

Pixels

Uncool is now cool

Internet lingo

GEEKS ARE CHIC

'After years of prosecution, ridicule and never, ever getting the girl (or guy), geeks are finally, inefutably, certifiably chic.'
-Neil Feineman, Geekchic, 2005

Being a geek is now more popular and acceptable than ever in history. The meaning of the word 'geek' has changed drastically. 95 years ago, Webster's Dictionary defined a geek as :

1: A carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake.
2: A person often of an intellectual bent who is disliked.

As you noticed, geek was in no way conceived chic or cool, especially the head biter.



But Jon Katz says a geek is someone who is ‘identifiable by a singular obsessiveness about the things they love, both work and play, and a well-honed sense of bitter, even savage outsider humour' (Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho, 2005)

Now, that's more like it.

GEEK CHIC

For my unit 14 project, I aim to explore the current fame that geek culture has been gaining and represent it in a medium/format/domain where it hasn't been explored. And the final piece will involve some physical physical interactivity from the audience.