MIDI Jacket

Overview

Computing will only be truly "wearable" when it finally disappears into the fabric of everyday life.

It is perhaps safe to say that the majority of society will always wear clothing. Textiles are one of the earliest technologies, serving many functions: affording protection from the environment, defining the wearer's identity, and providing places to carry objects.

But the electronic gear that makes this information revolution possible still takes an awkward form. It's not truly wearable except in the sense that it will fit in your pocket or strap onto your body. The goal of this work is to integrate technology directly into clothing by replacing circuit boards with fabric circuitry and packaging components for assembly into fabric circuits.

Technical Implementation

Hardware

• Conductive fabric circuits

• Fabric-based sensors

• Integrated MIDI interface

• Washable electronics design

Construction

• Conductive thread techniques

• Component integration methods

• Robust connection systems

• Durability considerations

Media

Innovation & Impact

• Early demonstration of fabric-integrated electronics

• Novel approach to wearable musical interfaces

• Development of washable electronics techniques

• Influence on subsequent e-textile projects

Related Work

• Wearable Computing - Foundation for wearable interfaces

• Sp4rkl3 - Later work in interactive textiles