Stitching Intelligence by Mika Satomi
On May 10, 2021, Mika Satomi from the collective KOBAKANT gave a remote guest artist talk at DXARTS 472 Mechatronic Art, Design and Fabrication II, entitled Stitching Intelligence. The DXARTS Softlab is especially happy to have been able to host this talk as Mika's work individually and KOBAKANT’s work collectively have been a huge source of inspiration for this lab’s work and research, and their wearable technology database has been an incredible resource for teaching e-textiles and wearables. KOBAKANT’s work, their perseverance, and generosity to share in an open manner all their experiments, have been instrumental to the development of the field of e-textiles, and wearable technology. Plus, when the DXARTS Softlab was first founded back in 2016, our very first guest was Hannah-Perner Wilson doing an in-person workshop on working with pins as sensors entitled Transparent and Dangerous, so it’s really nice to be able to host Mika too, even if due to the pandemic we had to do it virtually.
A few words about Mika:
Mika Satomi is a designer and an artist working in the field of e-Textiles, Interaction Design, and Physical Computing. Her work explores how we relate to technology and what we really want in them. She often collaborates with musicians and performers creating technology embedded costumes and interactive systems.
Since 2006 Mika has collaborated with Hannah Perner-Wilson, forming the art collective duo KOBAKANT creating artistic projects in the field of e-Textiles and Wearable Technology Art. She is a co-author of the e-Textile online database How To Get What You Want. Currently, she lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Stitching Intelligence:
In the first part of the lecture, Mika talked about her work with Hannah Perner-Wilson as KOBAKANT, their motivation behind the How To Get What You Want wearable technology archive, their artworks, and the e-textile tailor shop KOBA they run in Berlin for a year before the pandemic hit.
In the second part of the lecture, Mika talked about her most recent work Artificial Intelligence and Its False Lies, which she developed throughout the pandemic in the context of a Starts Residency. The project involves the creation of a wearable artificial neural network using 60 ATtiny85 mCs as the neurons and a gesture-sensing glove that tracks 3 movements of the rock paper scissors game as the dataset. Mika also engaged in an incredibly fruitful conversation with the DXARTS students about craft, working with technology, and the perceptions we have about artificial intelligence and machine learning systems.
