This week we attended re:publica Berlin. Taking place in the cool city of Berlin, the digital culture event brings together activists, scientists, hackers, entrepreneurs, NGOs, journalists, social media and marketing experts.
Founded in 2007, the “society conference” creates synergies between net politics, online marketing, network technology, digital society, and (pop) culture. Attracting around 43% of females, this year’s program includes 850 international speakers from 60 countries, representing on 17 stages, with the youngest speaker being only 11 years and the oldest being Zygmunt Bauman, who is aged 89.
The annual event attracts innovators from all over the globe including Iceland,South Africa, US and Singapore. As wonderful as that is, what intrigued us about re:publica was the day long sub-conference #FASHIONTECH BERLIN.
In its fifth round at re:publica, #FASHIONTECH Berlin, described by Vogue (Germany) as being “about the compatibility of fashion and technology” is centred around bringing fashion, technology and wearables to re:publica. The event unites gadgets, hacking and fashion with the objective to bridge content from fashion design and technology. This year at re:publica 2016 they held talks, lectures, workshops and exhibits on all sorts of fashion topics. Taking place on the last day of re:publica, Wednesday 4th May 2016, #FASHIONTECH Berlin scheduled 13 sessions, and out of those 13 we found ourselves drawn to only two, The Internet of Textile Thing and Empathic Technology.
Rene Bohne talk was all about the Internet of Textile Things. He talked about his research at RWTH Aachen University and explained why we should want to create the Internet of Textile Things that connects smart fashion. His main key point was about how we could connect smart fashion to our smart phones in order to make our clothes part of The Internet of Textile Things. Why? because according to Bohne, the Internet of Textile Things solves many problems including, uploading new programs to your smart fashion, remote controlling one or many costumes and real-time interaction.
Although not directly fashion tech, we felt the pull of Fotini Markopoulou. As the CEO of doppel, she creates science and design led technology that empowers people to naturally change how they feel, think and behave. During her talk, she looked at how sensors can augment and distort our perception of ourselves, which in turn overloads our brain. This is because [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=”null”]we do not process data, we process experiences[/inlinetweet], and in Markopoulou’s opinion this is what technology should be able to deliver.
She continued by stressing that research on our sense has shown that physiology holds the key to our feelings and experiences and that at doppel they use this research to create technologies that naturally change how we feel, think and behave. They are doing this by focusing technology on emotions, as well as rationality, so they can make life as productive, pleasant and powerful as possible.
Although the talks from Bohne and Markopoulou were very interesting, as the day progressed, we felt slightly unsatisfied. There simply was not enough fashion tech to quench our thirst. We wanted more. Only having two out of thirteen sessions grab our interest was kind of disappointing, we expected more. Before attending, we found ourselves looking forward to the program being comprised of the kind of discussions, talks, and short introductions that would give fashion tech startups, developers, publishers and designers an opportunity to start a conversation on their ideas, visions and the potential of the industry.
True, re:publica is buzzy and exciting, but unfortunately this year, fashion tech was not name of the game. But as an always positively hopeful being, maybe next year we will be able to say differently.
In the mood to re-read last year’s coverage on re:publica 2015?
Founding editor-in-chief of FashNerd.com, Muchaneta is currently one of the leading influencers writing about the merger of fashion with technology and wearable technology. She has also given talks at Premiere Vision, Munich Fabric Start and Pure London, to name a few. Besides working as a fashion innovation consultant for various fashion companies like LVMH Atelier, Muchaneta has also contributed to Vogue Business, is a senior contributor at The Interline and an associate lecturer at London College of Fashion, UAL.