Artist Statement

Intimate Connections are fashion accessories aimed at the loving couple. The steam punk inspired wrist bands can only be activated by physically connecting to their partner’s wristband. Once connected, by holding hands, the wristband becomes activated which then switches the emotion light on. This light glows in an intimate and delicate fashion, and serves as a reminder to the wearer of their partner. Two wristbands we’re designed, a masculine wristband and a feminine wristband. Both of these must be present in the procedure in order for the device to be activated; the partners hold hands while wearing the device, and once released the emotion light slowly fades over the course of an hour until it is completely off. To make the wristbands illuminate once more, the partners must again hold hands.

Each wristband consists of its own Lilypad, switch mechanism, light and power supply. The wristbands were created using only found materials as steam punk challenges the throw away culture of today’s society. Intimate Connections consist of leather, aluminum, steel, brass and lace.

final images for final project

These are our finished wristbands in action. The wristband in the foreground in the females and the other is the males. You can see in the image that they have been activated from the “Intimate Connection” between the couple.

final images for final project

Some more images of the males wristband

final images for final project

Images showing some of the detail on the armbands. The lights are in the process of fading as each wristband has been separated from the other.

final images for final project

These two images are of the models wearing the two armbands and activating the light by holding hands

finishing off

some more image showing the wiring of the electronics. Nate managed to break a reed switch and the other switch broke from to much movement! so luckily we brought four! lets pray we don’t break anymore!!. The bottom image is taken with another students project, we thought the two went well together

nearly there

wiring up the lilypad and all of its components on the male and female wristband, so far everything going well, Its a bit fiddly to hide all the wires but we put  a few holes in the armbands to make it easier.

wiring up

The red object on the arm band is the coin cell battery, I figure we will have to tape almost every section of wiring because we used so much metal on the actual arm band and there is a risk of the metal conducting and causes a short circuit. LETS HOPE NOT!

making of

These are some images from when I was working on the features of the armbands. The bottom image was taken while I was putting together the cogs to go on Nate’s arm band. I soldered the pieces together with copper and solder, it looks a little messy up close but its the best I could do with what I have, hopefully we’ll have some time on Thursday to fix all the little details. Faylin and Nate code the code working today so we should be able to have it finished soon.

closer

were just busy working on the final touches of the two arm bands, Faylin and Nate have started on the coding so hopefully that will be finished today and I can connect the rest of the components and start taking photos!