Shiwen Wang

Shiwen Wang featured image

About

I keep myself a few steps away from people occasionally, but also draw inspiration from people. Trying to influence myself and the surrounding environment with shaping and imagining, I build fragments of the utopia in real life. I believe that sincerity is the most important quality, no matter for humans or artifacts. In pursuit of the guidance of inclusive, unified and concise concepts, I hope that my works will become a gentle advocator and communicate with a wide range of audiences in a non violent way. My current interested area is functional wearables which apply old craftsmanship into new technologies.

Education

2020-2022 MA Design Products, Royal College of Art

2016-2020 BEng Industrial Design, Tongji University

2019-2019 BA Design (Exchange Program), Gothenburg University

Exhibition

'Support System' 2022 Milan Design Week

Contact

Degree Details

Add to contacts

  • Shiwen Wang qr code

Statement

FingerTypes is a project experimenting how human’s behaviour can be shaped by the tool we use and questioning how the general format of digital object constrain our body and mind. Reimagining if keyboard is mapping on fingers, the project realizes the concept of functional wearable to be a more intuitive and flexible form of a future digital tool though glove-making, embroidery and e-textile techniques and also invites a series of gestures as a universal cultural symbol based on this new materiality.

What If Keyboard is Mapped On Fingers

15 Mins Typing Test — Testers can be familiar with this interaction in a short time because it's from the qwerty format which is not a radical change but some find it's more difficult to jump between row & row especially on ring finger.
Letters Positioned On Knuckles and Lines
Letters Positioned On Knuckles and Lines

Gestures Communication

FingerType Gestures Map
FingerType Gestures Map
FingerType Gestures — I've taught some gestures to people and this is how they are using them. They invented more playful ways to perform these. For workers using other new digital tools like vr/ar, this enables a more flexible way of working, in any environment you can imagine.
Sentiments in Distant Conversations
Sentiments in Distant Conversations — Cute emojis are to show friendliness to strangers, evil sentiments are more intimate and not necessarily delivering negative emotions. Exaggerated expression seems more genuine and causes humorous effect.

By mapping the keyboard on fingers, it invites a series of gestures as an universal cultural symbol. Like what we are doing now in informal writing pop culture - typing single or double letter abbreviations to help express sentiments missing in fast, distant conversations, these abbreviations can be transformed into gestures when typing on fingers and help us communicate sentiments better in the digital and the physical.

Functional Wearables

Photocopy of the Gloves
Photocopy of the Gloves
Prototype C
Prototype C
Prototype C
Prototype C
Embroidered Piece
Embroidered Piece
Prototype B
Prototype B
Checking the Conductivity
Checking the Conductivity
Prototype A
Prototype A
Overview of the Prototypes
Overview of the Prototypes
Digital Embroidered Circuit
Digital Embroidered Circuit
Sewing the Patterns
Sewing the Patterns
Early-stage Prototyping the Structure
Early-stage Prototyping the Structure
Functionalizing Overlocked Edges
Functionalizing Overlocked Edges

Type-technology adapts, from typewriters to keyboards, and FingerTypes is the latest adaptation of the finger-based communication. These gloves are designed to help people learn gesture-based interactions for XR technology and also to bring people the possibilities to use it and communicate creatively. The experiments are also to prompt a future that the extended functionality of human body enabled by digital technology and interactions being a new domain in fashion.

Medium: fabrics, conductive thread, silicon rubber, PLA