Tag Archives: London College of Fashion

Royal Institution, science, and nanotechnology 101 and #RE_IMAGINE at the London College of Fashion

I’m featuring two upcoming events in London (UK).

Nanotechnology 101: The biggest thing you’ve never seen

 Gold Nanowire Array Credit: lacomj via Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/40137058@N07/3790862760

Gold Nanowire Array
Credit: lacomj via Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/40137058@N07/3790862760 [downloaded from http://www.rigb.org/whats-on/events-2015/october/public-nanotechnology-101-the-biggest-thing-you]

Already sold out, this event is scheduled for Oct. 20, 2015. Here’s why you might want to put yourself on a waiting list, from the Royal Institution’s Nanotechnology 101 event page,

How could nanotechnology be used to create smart and extremely resilient materials? Or to boil water three times faster? Join former NASA Nanotechnology Project Manager Michael Meador to learn about the fundamentals of nanotechnology—what it is and why it’s unique—and how this emerging, disruptive technology will change the world. From invisibility cloaks to lightweight fuel-efficient vehicles and a cure for cancer, nanotechnology might just be the biggest thing you can’t see.

About the speaker

Michael Meador is currently Director of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, on secondment from NASA where he had been managing the Nanotechnology Project in the Game Changing Technology Program, working to mature nanotechnologies with high potential for impact on NASA missions. One part of his current job is to communicate nanotechnology research to policy-makers and the public.

Here’s some logistical information from the event page,

7.00pm to 8.30pm, Tuesday 20 October
The Theatre

Standard £12
Concession £8
Associate £6
Free to Members, Faraday Members and Fellows

For anyone who may not know offhand where the Royal Institution and its theatre is located,

The Royal Institution of Great Britain
21 Albemarle Street
London
W1S 4BS

+44 (0) 20 7409 2992
(9.00am – 6.00pm Mon – Fri)

Here’s a description of the Royal Institution from its Wikipedia entry (Note: Links have been removed),

The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often abbreviated as the Royal Institution or RI) is an organisation devoted to scientific education and research, based in London.

The Royal Institution was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, including Henry Cavendish and its first president, George Finch, the 9th Earl of Winchilsea,[1] for

diffusing the knowledge, and facilitating the general introduction, of useful mechanical inventions and improvements; and for teaching, by courses of philosophical lectures and experiments, the application of science to the common purposes of life.
— [2]

Much of its initial funding and the initial proposal for its founding were given by the Society for Bettering the Conditions and Improving the Comforts of the Poor, under the guidance of philanthropist Sir Thomas Bernard and American-born British scientist Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford. Since its founding it has been based at 21 Albemarle Street in Mayfair. Its Royal Charter was granted in 1800. The Institution announced in January 2013 that it was considering sale of its Mayfair headquarters to meet its mounting debts.[3]

#RE_IMAGINE

While this isn’t a nanotechnology event, it does touch on topics discussed here many times: wearable technology, futuristic fashion, and the integration of technology into the body. The Digital Anthropology Lab (of the  London College of Fashion, which is part of the University of the Arts London) is being officially launched with a special event on Oct. 16, 2015. Before describing the event, here’s more about the Digital Anthropology Lab from its homepage,

Crafting fashion experience digitally

The Digital Anthropology Lab, launching in Autumn 2015, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London is a research studio bringing industry and academia together to develop a new way of making smarter with technology.

The Digital Anthropology Lab, London College of Fashion, experiments with artefacts, communities, consumption and making in the digital space, using 3D printing, body scanning, code and electronics. We focus on an experimental approach to digital anthropology, allowing us to practically examine future ways in which digital collides with the human experience. We connect commercial partners to leading research academics and graduate students, exploring seed ideas for fashion tech.

Now

WEARABLES
We radically re-imagine this emerging fashion- tech space, exploring both the beautification of technology for wearables and critically explore the ‘why.’

Near

IoT BIG DATA
Join us to experiment with, ‘The Internet of Fashion Things.’ Where the Internet of Things, invisible big data technologies, virtual fit and meta-data collide.

Future

DESIGN FICTIONS
With the luxury of the imagination, we aim to re- wire our digital ambitions and think again about designing future digital fashion experiences for generation 2050.

Here’s information I received from the Sept. 30, 2015 announcement I received via email,

The Digital Anthropology Lab at London College of Fashion, UAL invites you to #RE_IMAGINE: A forum exploring the now, near and future of fashion technology.

#RE_IMAGINE, the Digital Anthropology Lab’s launch event, will present a fantastically diverse range of digital speakers and ask them to respond to the question – ‘Where are our digital selves heading?’

Join us to hear from pioneers, risk takers, entrepreneurs, designers and inventors including Ian Livingston CBE, Luke Robert Mason from New Bionics, Katie Baron from Stylus, J. Meejin Yoon from MIT among others. Also come to see what happened when we made fashion collide with the Internet of Things, they are wearable but not as you know it…

#RE_IMAGINE aims to be an informative, networked and enlightening brainstorm of a day. To book your place please follow this link.

To coincide with the exhibition Digital Disturbances, Fashion Space Gallery presents a late night opening event. Alongside a curator tour will be a series of interactive demonstrations and displays which bring together practitioners working across design, science and technology to investigate possible human and material futures. We’d encourage you to stay and enjoy this networking opportunity.

Friday 16th October 2015

9.30am – 5pm – Forum event 

5pm – 8.30pm – Digital Disturbances networking event

London College of Fashion

20 John Princes Street
London
W1G 0BJ 

Ticket prices are £75.00 for a standard ticket and £35.00 for concession tickets (more details here).

For more #RE_IMAGINE specifics, there’s the event’s Agenda page. As for Digital Disturbances, here’s more from the Fashion Space Gallery’s Exhibition homepage,

Digital Disturbances

11th September – 12th December 2015

Digital Disturbances examines the influence of digital concepts and tools on fashion. It provides a lens onto the often strange effects that emerge from interactions across material and virtual platforms – information both lost and gained in the process of translation. It presents the work of seven designers and creative teams whose work documents these interactions and effects, both in the design and representation of fashion. They can be traced across the surfaces of garments, through the realisation of new silhouettes, in the remixing of images and bodies in photography and film, and into the nuances of identity projected into social and commercial spaces.

Designers include: ANREALAGE, Bart Hess, POSTmatter, Simone C. Niquille and Alexander Porter, Flora Miranda, Texturall and Tigran Avetisyan.

Digital Disturbances is curated by Leanne Wierzba.

Two events—two peeks into the future.

Catalytic Clothing debuts its kilts at Edinburgh International Science Festival

If it’s been your dream to catch a glimpse of hairy male legs in kilts designed (the kilts not the legs) to clean the air free of pollution, you can make it come true at the Edinburgh International Science Festival, March 30 – April 15, 2012.

Image via Flickr user zoonabar (downloaded from http://dvice.com/archives/2012/02/nanotechnology-1.php)

Eileen Marable’s Feb. 22, 2012 article on DVICE provides details,

The unlikely pairing of a chemist and a fashion designer has led to the creation of air-purifying textiles. The duo will debut a catalyzed denim kilt at the Edinburgh International Science Festival at the end of March.

And by debut, they mean wearing it.

I wrote about Catalytic Clothing, a collaboration between Professor Helen Storey at the London College of Fashion and Professor Tony Ryan, a scientist at the University of Sheffield, in my July 8, 2011 posting. The story was about a nanotechnology-enabled couture dress that Storey had designed from a textile treated by Tony Ryan to remove pollution from the air. Marable’s story provides more technical detail about how this is accomplished. The kilts, by the way, will be cleaning the pollutant, nitric oxide from the air.

The Edinburgh International Science Festival website can be found here. At least one event is already sold out.

London (UK) Science Festival opens Oct. 19, 2011

Being held from Oct. 19 – 26, 2011, the first London Science Festival will be featuring the Festival of the Spoken Nerd; Bridget, Astrium’s Mars rover prototype for the European ExoMars Project; Field of Jeans, London College of Fashion and Royal Society of Chemistry science-fashion installation; The Big Bang Machine: Engineering the LHC [Large Hadron Collider]; a special screening of the movie, Inception; and more.

You can get details about these events and others here in this roundup. The London Science Festival website lists each event with its date and booking information.

Nanotechnology-enabled Catalytic Clothes look good and clean the air

There’s a great video on the RIA Novosti website featuring interviews about an art/science collaboration between Professor Helen Storey at the London College of Fashion and Professor Tony Ryan, a scientist at the University of Sheffield. The two have created clothing that cleans the air of pollution. From the University of Sheffield June 15, 2011 news release,

Catalytic Clothing is a radical partnership between the University of Sheffield and London College of Fashion University of the Arts London that brings together the worlds of fashion and chemistry with the potential to clean the air we breathe. Employing existing technology in a new way, it seeks to explore how clothing and textiles can be used as a catalytic surface to purify air. It is the brainchild of artist/designer Professor Helen Storey MBE and chemist Professor Tony Ryan OBE – people from two very differing worlds who are using their diametric approaches to achieve great things. Previous projects include the groundbreaking Wonderland project which has now been seen by over 11 million people worldwide.


An exclusive film starring Erin O’Connor with soundtrack by Radiohead is already going viral with millions of views.

Here’s a brief preview of the film,

Here’s a link to the Catalytic Clothing website where you can see the entire film.

For those interested in the science part of the Catalytic Clothing story (from the Catalytic Clothing website, Scientific Background/FAQS page),

What is the science behind Catalytic Clothing?

Catalytic Clothing harnesses the power of a photocatalyst to break down air borne pollutants. A catalyst is a term used to describe something that makes a reaction proceed at a greater rate but isn’t actually consumed during that reaction. A photocatalyst gains the energy it needs to be active from light.

Where do the pollutants come from?

The two biggest sources of air borne pollutants are industry and motor vehicles. Although the majority of the pollutants are prevented from reaching the air, using technology such as catalytic converters, some do escape. It is these pollutants that Catalytic Clothing will break down.

How are the pollutants broken down?

When the light shines on the photocatalyst, the electrons in the material are rearranged and they become more reactive. These electrons are then able to react with the water in the air and break it apart into 2 radicals. A radical is an extremely reactive molecule. These radicals then react with the pollutants and cause them to break down into non-harmful chemicals.

What happens to the pollutants after they’ve been broken down?

The Catalytic Clothing technology is designed to breakdown the pollutants straight away. However, some pollutants may become attached without being broken down. In this case, the pollutants will be washed off during subsequent laundering. This actually already happens with normal clothing.

Is this technology used in any other products?

Photocatalysts have been incorporated into several commercially available products that possess de-polluting properties. These products include paints, cements and paving stones. [Note 1: In the RIA Novosti video, Ryan mentions titanium dioxide specifically. Note 2: Coatings for pavements in Germany are mentioned in my August 2, 2010 posting; scroll down 1/2 way.]

How is the technology delivered to the surface of the clothing?

The photocatalyst is delivered to the surface of the clothing during the traditional laundry procedure as an additive within a standard product such as a fabric conditioner. The active agent is packaged within a shell that is attracted towards, and subsequently binds to, the surface of the clothing during the washing cycle.

Why do we need mass participation to produce a noticeable reduction in the level of pollution?

Although any garment that is treated with the product becomes active, a single garment is only able to remove a small proportion of the air borne pollutants. Therefore, a large number of individuals, all acting together, is required to produce a noticeable reduction in the level of pollution.

How many people would need to participate to produce a noticeable reduction in the level of pollution?

An estimate of the required level of uptake for the Catalytic Clothing indicates that a significant reduction in the level of air borne pollutants in a large city such as London could be achieved if, for every metre of pavement width, 30 people wearing Catalytic Clothes walked past each minute.

Would someone wearing Catalytic Clothing be at a greater risk of exposure to pollutants?

No. The Catalytic Clothing technology won’t actively attract any pollutants. Instead, it will break down anything that comes within very close proximity of the photocatalyst’s surface.

How would society benefit if Catalytic Clothing was widely introduced?

Exposure to air borne pollutants presents a risk to human health and also has a detrimental effect on ecosystems and vegetation. Air pollution is currently estimated to reduce the life expectancy of every person in the UK by an average of 7-8 months. The widespread introduction of Catalytic Clothing would dramatically reduce the level of air borne pollutants, thereby improving the quality of life for all members of society.

The main sponsor for the project is Ecover (from the news release),

Ecover, who are the main sponsors of the Catalytic Clothing cultural campaign, are one of the world´s leading suppliers of green and sustainable cleaning products. All of their products are made with fully renewable plant-based ingredients and produced using a totally biochemical process. Ecover has been recognised by the United Nations Environment programme (UNEP) for their outstanding practical achievements for the protection and improvement of our environment.

Here’s the Ecover website.

This really is the last posting for today. Happy Weekend!

ETA July 11, 2011: Here’s a posting by Jasmin Malik Chua about the project at the Ecouterre website.