Leah Heiss

I have been looking at what is available in the realm of medical jewellery. There are a variety of dog tags, bracelets, key rings etc. that let people know that the wearer has a certain condition (e.g. T1 Diabetes). The medical jewellery available is all benign - just acting as an informational tool and does not contain any active therapeutic mechanisms. I have attached a few images below for example of SOS talismans and ID jewellery (neckpieces, bracelets, sports tags etc.).

Images from http://www.idaustralia.com.au

One exception to the inert medical jewellery is the (conceptual) Skintile by Phillips. This is electronic sensing jewellery (physiological + emotional) which would definitely have medical applications. While they are not functional prototypes they are beautiful looking pieces. Phillips are very vague about how/what emotions they are sensing. As I discovered in my Masters inferring emotional state through physiological data is a hotly contested research field but one that is of intense interest to the military.

Images from http://www.design.philips.com/probes/projects/electronic_sensing_jewelry/index.page

A third area of making that is somewhat relevant to my project is that of biological jewellery. I am particularly fond of a project by Tobie Kerridge and Nikki Stott in which, working with scientists, they cultivate bone cells from couples and incorporate the scaffolded bone into rings. The notion of wearing a piece of each other is quite interesting. See this article for more information http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6215702.stm

The creative process is an interesting beast - full of stops, starts, moments of clarity interspersed with cloudy hazes. I am pleased to report that things with the projects are progressing at a steady pace now - we are finally in production mode. I have reduced the projects to their core two which are both jewellery focused pieces.

There is something nice about working at the wearable jewellery scale. Working with body wearables one can fall into the trap of attaching a battery pack here or a large clump of electronics there. The body can support these things and such infrastructure can always be slotted into a pocket at the base of the spine. Working with jewellery however provides greater constraints. It just isn’t possible to pack a 9 volt battery into a necklace, without it losing all delicacy. So the designer/artist needs to become comfortable with reducing the scale of the projects.

The physical artefact is a truth serum for the potential success of the project. I have just had the second prototype cast in silver and it is much different in the light of day to how I had visualised it on the computer. The next phase with this project - a device for administering Microarray patches to the skin - is to develop the internal mechanisms in collaboration with Catapult Innovations. Multidisciplinary interaction enriches the projects as it makes me think about thigs that I’m not used to contemplating - like how it’s going to function! The heady days of the vague artiste are over…

Well - I have just been asked to address some questions in relation to my projects for a publication and thought it might be good to further expand on these ideas in a public forum (ie my blog).

Does engaging with the artistic expression of nano-applications bring you any closer to the technology?
The process of collaborating with nanotechnologists has allowed me to gain a greater understanding of the breadth of applications for nanotechnology. However, I have found that while it is possible to develop artistic projects to house nanotechnologies it is harder to conceive of projects which embody nanotechnologies, particularly within the short term. The next step for my artistic practice would be to try to engage with some of the less tangible nanotechnologies and try to develop projects which utilise or engage with these.

What is the response of the scientific community to your art?
I have found that the response from the scientific community has been very positive. Scientists are generally very busy developing technologies and don’t necessarily have the time to consider the emotional impact of their creations or ways to improve their user accessibility. Through my residency I have been focused on humanising technologies - and this is by and large regarded positively by scientists. Through the process of making, exhibiting, and presenting projects that incorporate nanotechnologies the field is demystified and ungrounded fears allayed.

Could this be a new alliance between scientists and artists to close the gap between technology development and public perception?
My projects are largely based on humanising nanotechnologies which directly addresses the gap between technology development and public perception. While the scientific community is involved in the development of many exciting new technologies, these are often focused on specific health or scientific goals. I am interested in augmenting the value of these technologies through artistic practice to challenge their social and emotional potential. The projects all have a corporeal focus and will share the goal of enhancing the relationship between people and their therapeutic technologies. The humanising of therapeutic technologies allows people to engage with them more directly, on an emotional level, and thus potentially demystify the technologies behind therapeutics.

Whilst the technologies I am engaging with are technically advanced their interface is traditional, positioned as medical devices. People respond to medical applications in a very different way to how they respond to jewellery or a favourite scarf. Through the artistic practice of embedding technologies into jewellery the non-scientific public are able to engage more directly with these technologies. Through focusing on the intersection between largely inaccessible nanotechnologies and highly accessible artefacts (garments and jewellery) the projects assist in building community awareness and understanding of nanotechnologies.

Have you received any negative feedback as you are working with potentially controversial technology?
At present I am working with technologies that are helpful rather than harmful. That is, patches to replace needles for diabetics + technology to purify water of arsenic. Thus my projects have been received in a very positive way.

An interesting designer who did a project ‘therapeutic objects’ which investigated the relationship of humans to their therapeutics: Mathieu Lehanneur. http://www.mathieulehanneur.com/ (tab 4).
The work was exhibited as part of the 2005 MoMa exhibition SAFE: Design Takes on Risks. http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2005/safe/safe.html

Image: Leah Heiss: Arrhythmia - to be exhibited as part of FUSE exhibition, Jam Factory, January 2008.

A challenging thing about this kind of residency is the fine line that it treads between art and design. Having just returned from a seminar on textiles technology I am thinking about the difference between art and design specifically within the context of this residency. During a thought provoking conversation with a colleague in a similar field it has been suggested that the role of the artist in residency is to have free reign and produce ‘art’ that pushes the boundaries of the scientists and the artists involved. The assertion seemed to be that ‘design’ is a less exploratory process and one in which the designer responds to a brief, either set externally or by the designer. There was certainly an underlying sense that ‘design’ somehow answered a pre-existing need , was probably commercialisable, and was thus less exploratory or creative than ‘art’.
After a little thinking time I think it’s necessary to push a third scenario: the artist/designer within the scientific context. The view that ‘art’ is exploratory and design is commercialisable, outcome and brief-driven seems very reductive. Design is an inherently exploratory process. Within the context of this residency the challenge has been to interface with new types of knowledge + technology and develop projects which engage these in new and interesting ways. The outcomes may or may not be of interest to other parties. If they are commercialisable it seems very closed minded to discredit these as ‘less than art’ simply because at the end of the experimentation process there is a tangible product that may fill a need.

Further, the emphasis on the distinction between process and outcome that is often a source of antipathy between ‘artists’ and ‘designers’ seems somewhat arbitrary. There is no self-driven creative endeavour that does not involve a process of exploration. There is always some ‘outcome’ to creative processes. This is not always a tangible product - it may be a painting, exhibition, ephemeral experience, performance, or a new way of working.

So, at the conclusion of this thought process I am quite fine about being an artist/designer working within a scientific context. This seems to be the most exciting of combinations as it allows for the development of new ways of working, experimentation with different media, exploration of unique ideas and potentially some really interesting outcomes - some tangible and others experiential.

One thing that I had not expected to learn so much about through this residency was the process of design registration + patent applications. Actually, I am quite stunned at how little designers know about registering our designs. My compatriots and I tend to keep moving along producing more designs and not protecting them, except through sheer pace. While this works well (most of the time) in a design field, provided you keep innovating, it is not so appropriate for an environment that is focused on potential commercialisation. I have also learnt that I can’t publish anything on my blog (images of designs) that I am hoping to later register. As this constitutes prior designs (even though they may be my images) it precludes registering the design in the future. So to all of the interested parties out there looking forward to juicy pics of what I am doing…you may have to wait!

There are timeframes and there are timeframes. I am realising that in the world of therapeutic technologies - in fact anything related to medicine - timeframes are longer than in the world of art + design making. For instance, a drug trial might take 5-10 years. This is an aeon in relation to a concept design or even completed design prototype. As I am working with developing human scale prototypes to house/contain therapeutic technologies I am having to reconcile these diverse timeframes. I am keen to develop two physical prototypes in the next 4 weeks which will house technologies. One of the projects is a vessel that contains mesoporous iron oxide for treating arsenic in ground water - titled Carrying Wellness (for the time being anyway) - this contains a technology which is already developed. However, I would like to incorporate a sensing device into the vessel which does not really exist (that I can find). So the project becomes speculative - contingent on future development.

The other project is an extension of my early Patch Rings project (see below image) - and operates on a longer timeframe. The role of the designer/artist in working with emerging therapeutic technologies is again positioned as more speculative. Developing solutions to problems that are still being fleshed out. This is quite distinct from developing work with existing/tested technologies - as I have done in the past.

The strong thing about this position is that as an artist/designer we have an impact on that which is not yet completely formed. Perhaps our ideas will shape consumer expectations? Further, by the time therapeutic technologies are tested and ready to market our designs will be so well resolved that they will be able to be released alongside their technological counterparts.

The Macquarie Dictionary suggests that embedding is “to fix firmly in a surrounding mass” while to enable is to “to make able; give power, means, or ability to; make competent; authorise” or to make possible or easy”. The purpose of the residency - I am starting to glean - is to further develop projects that enable: users and artefacts. This might include enabling a parent to determine immediately, without medical apparatus, whether their child has a temperature. It simultaneously focuses on enabling artefacts - enabling a piece of jewellery to non-verbally indicate the presence of a higher than normal temperature. The methodology through which this is achieved is the design process. How do we take a desire for information and turn it into a product?

Reference: The Macquarie Dictionary Online © 2007 Macquarie Dictionary Publishers Pty Ltd.

This is the blog of Leah Heiss, designer, and her manifold adventures while undertaking a residency with Nanotechnology Victoria. The main aims of this residency are to address the following parallel concerns:

- Is it possible to augment our garments and artefacts with extra functionalities - the power to heal, correct, and treat our physical ailments?

- How can the changing colour of our jewellery or the shape transformation of our wound dressing communicate to us about our physical and emotional health and wellbeing?