Viral Style: Dressing Smart With Wearable Sound Accessories And Electronic Sneakers

BLESS n. 45 Soundperfume engineered by POPKALAB - Orchestra Scarf.

Based between Rotterdam and Rio de Janeiro, experimental project POPKALAB is all about creating unique experiences through the mediums of smart clothing, unique design, interactive installations and tactile interfaces. Spearheaded by founder Ricardo Nascimento, the lab have recently been making waves with a series of wearable sound-based accessories and electronic-embedded sneakers. We caught up with Ricardo to find out more.

The Creator’s Project: Tell us a bit about POPKALAB. What's it all about, how did it first get started, and what was your initial aim when setting the project up?
Ricardo Nascimento: POPKALAB started as a platform to present my personal work. After some time, I started to receive requests from other artists and companies to develop interactive pieces, so I decided to migrate my personal portfolio and founded POPKALAB as a independent studio focused on the creation of experiences through smart clothing and interactive installations.

MAK Fashion Lab #01 - Shoes Sequenz courtesy of MAK Wien.

Walk us through the kinds of intelligent clothing prototypes POPKALAB works on. What are your thoughts on the ongoing relationship between fashion, technology and the body?
We develop pieces that expand our senses and use the body as a vehicle for making statements. We create clothes that make music, light up, react to cell phones and light to extend our body. For us, it’s important to hide the technology as much as possible, until it becomes almost invisible – at first glance, the pieces look like ordinary pieces of cloth but when you start to interact with them through wearing them, something extraordinary happens. During the conception of the pieces, we try not to create "gadgets", but instead pieces that can have a poetical approach. We’re more interested in making people dream, instead of necessarily making the wearer's life more efficient.  Fashion is a way of expression, and technology adds other possibilities for this expression to happen.

We love the sound-based pieces like the Recording Shoes and the Orchestra Scarf (top image) you guys recently put together with the BLESS project. Creating physical pieces that allow the wearer to tailor auditory experience as wearable fashion is a pretty impressive undertaking – what was the inspiration behind those designs? 
The idea behind the Orchestra Scarf was to create a bubble of sound around the body, as if it was a perfume. In the morning, you can choose which perfume you are going to wear. We wanted to do the same with the music, to allow people to be able to decide how they would like to sound. You can change the sound by wearing it in different ways.

Popkalab Jump Sneakers

BLESS n. 45 Soundperfume engineered by POPKALAB - Orchestra Scarf.

The Recording Shoes is a piece that plays with our perception; by playing the sound of steps when the person stops walking, we intended to create a sonic confusion.

The last piece was the Melodised Hammock. The idea came from the design that BLESS made using pillows and robes – we wanted to turn the hammock into a instrument that can be played. The piece you’ve seen is the first prototype. We are now looking for opportunities to create another version, with more precise interaction.

Untangle Me (2012) courtesy of Ricardo O'Nascimento

Interactivity is obviously a key concept for you guys too – POPKALAB also works on interactive video installations and walls. Out of those projects, which one/two was a particular favourite/standout and why? How does the art side of your work relate to the more style/fashion-based aspect of things?
Our goal is to create experiences. The sensation triggered by a piece is, for us, more important than the piece itself. Sometimes smart clothing is the best way to create a specific experience – sometimes it might only be a drawing. However, interactivity is a powerful way to engage people.

A good example is the Head Bang Hero piece, which is a game where the interface is a long-haired wig, and you headbang to collect points – the tricky part is that you need to move your head a lot to get a good score, but by doing so you physically damage your neck. This behaviour raises interesting questions that go beyond pure entertainment, making us think about our relation with games. By using humour and fun, we can touch important aspects of contemporary life in a light, efficient way.

I believe the art side and the fashion/style side are actually the same. If you think about a cloth as a wearable sculpture, you open your mind to other shapes and functions.

POPKALAB was commissioned by Timberland last year–what was the deal there? (And if you could work with three other high-profile fashion brands, what would they be?)
Timberland wanted us to create an interactive piece by hacking one of their designs, so we created a shoe that posts pictures of your location on Twitter and Facebook while you walk. It got interesting feedback, especially from people concerned about privacy and geolocation. The shoes recently evolved into another product when we paired up with Opening Ceremony to embed electronics in their collab Adidas shoe design. The result was a piece titled ‘Jump!’—sneakers that enable their wearer to leave both a physical and virtual path. One jump allows a post to Twitter, two jumps takes a Google Streetview photo and posts it to Facebook, while three jumps enable the wearer to pin their personal Google map.

I’m very happy that established brands are starting to invest on smart clothing on an experimental level. If I could choose three brands or designers to work with, it’d be Alexander McQueen for their poetical and extravagant design, Adidas for their experimental vision on technology and Philip Treacy – just because I love his hats.

Outfits like yours are obviously at the forefront of the wearable tech field right now. What are your predictions for the medium over the next five, ten years or so? What kinds of developments will we see emerging?

In the past few years, the development of small and flexible electronics has opened up the possibility to create clothing that is both intelligent and fashionable. There are many "smart" pieces out there, but they lack in style. For example, the Google glass is a very interesting device in terms of functionality, but its design does not look so exciting. I believe that new smart clothes won’t look like they’re from outer space. At POPKALAB, we’re looking for warm designs that show a seamless integration with the technology.

In the future, I believe clothes will become more integrated with other electronics devices and that computers will be merged into everyday objects (including clothes) that will communicate with one another. This "Internet of things" is already happening, and will only increase in the near future. Smart clothes are improving the capability of communication with humans and the environment, as well as expanding our senses and modes of expression. However, despite all these exciting discoveries, we shouldn’t just use technology because it’s available; we need to create meaningful uses instead.

Popkalap is based between both Rotterdam and Rio de Janeiro. As working environments, are there any creative differences between the two?
POPKALAB is based in Rotterdam because I’m based there. In the Netherlands there are many people doing amazing fashion tech pieces, and there’s a growing scene with names like Anouk Wipprecht, Maartje Dijskstra, Local Androids and Pauline Van Dogen, to name a few. The Rio office allows me to keep a connection with my country, although I work there way less than I’d like. Our clients are spread over the globe and we often work remotely, creating the concept together via video conference and developing the technology in Rotterdam. Working in Brazil is always a pleasure – people are more relaxed and open to new ideas – but the access to technology is more complicated due to the high price and delivery time. In Rotterdam, I have an amazing team of engineers and designers, which makes it easier to develop the custom electronics and 3D print used in our projects.Those services are more accessible in Europe than in Brazil.

What kinds of projects has Popkalab got in store for 2014?
Next year will be very exciting. We are working on some projects, but unfortunately I can’t tell much due to contracts. I can say that we are developing another interactive shoe related to music, and also working in collaboration with Brazilian fashion brand High-High to create a concept piece for their next collection. We’re also planning to branch out into advertisement and promotion.