Creating Influence

People have been asking me what the need is behind my project. And i answer our project is firstly about creating influences. Some of my shoes have very good needs but first and fore most influence. so what influence do i want to make?

- Placebo/wonder/excitement/ imagination - with my films i want people to believe a sort of placebo effect that these things could happen. they can fly with rocket boots and shoes can move on their own. i want to influence their imagination.

- Use - with my electronic shoes i want people to see that shoes are more than fashion and protection. i want people to see more function and produce more interaction with their shoes and see that function and use don't have to come in the form of ipods.

I also feel that shoes as a topic is seen by most people as a bit superficial with no deeper meaning. I want this to change.

I think in the breadth of my project and seeing what can be done with shoes will be a very good influence. we have had shoes since the Egyptians, Romans and Greeks, yet their function has gone unchanged with only variety in their form, which is still essential the same. At this defining moment, change has come to shoes!!

Detachable Heals

I wanted to make a universal heal that you could attach different heals to to adjust the height and style of your shoes - reducing material use and cost of shoes. So i made 10 wooden heals all the same and then cut and latched them to demonstrate the concept. I have also made 007 killer heals that release ball bearings for enemies to slip on.

hand made shoes

I haven't spoken to any shoe makers yet but just wait and I will. anyway i wanted to see if i could make some shoes out of intuition and observation. So my boyfriend had to lend me his feet. I bought some stiffish cotton and just sort of cut it up and made it fit round his foot and held it in place with masking tape. But then i made it into a pattern of 3 parts: 2 heal parts and the over the toe area. Glued it all together and stapled it to an insole. did this for both feet - just reflected the pattern. then i added a tongue and some laces and voila a very rough pair of shoes, but a pair of shoes none the less.

Direction arrows

one of the ideas was to download maps on to your shoes and direction arrows on your shoes guide you the route. for people who get lost easily or find map reading hard- even on an i phone. i was suppose to be filming a proper working video but the weather man told me it was going to rain and i don't want my newly made electronics being ruined, needless to say it didn't really rain but i had left all my electronics on my desk. anyway here's the process of making the lights from some leds.

Walking a 1/4 mile in another girls boots

One of my ideas was to have cameras in shoes that took pictures automatically so you and other people could see your world in different ways with out any effort. My class mate Andy Craig was playing around with cat cams which are micro cameras. anyway not wanting to spend money on them as i wasn't sure if this was even a good idea, i made my own un-integrated camera boots. i had 4 disposable cameras left over from my probes in the play stage so strapped (with wire so i could angle them) them to my boots and set out to take a picture every 10 steps. There were two cameras on each leg, one on the front and one on the side. I took my first photos and then took one step and the cameras all fell out of their holder things I had devised, not good. so then I just held them win position where they would have been strapped for the photos. Also my 10 steps quickly became every 1 minute as 10 steps is not far and would not have much variety in my photos making not much point in the experiment. Using disposable cameras and holding them at my legs (you can see my shadow of me taking the pictures in some frames) meant i had no idea what i was taking photos of and no idea if they were going to be any good. i was pleasantly surprised. Anyway i got them developed and here is the wee video. there's music to. Enjoy!

Search light shoes

These shoes are designed to light up when the user snaps their heals together (ditto Dorothy wizard of oz). there are 2 settings: a constant light or flashing on only when heals are clicked. their use is for children to be easily and quickly seen when lost out and about. these shoes were made by the integration and modification of dynamo powered torches into a simple pair of pumps. For the shoes ( there are 2 I'll pop a video of them working together up this week) to be completely wearable the electronics need to be smaller and integrated better but a quick prototype to shoe the concept works. below is a picture of how bright the light is and a video of them flashing.
thanks

Proving PLAY!!

OK so i have heaps of blogs to post...just trying to find the right time, I've got a spare bit of time now but no photos so this is just a general blog about play.

due to the unconventional nature of my project, I'm playing around with heaps of different things. With the help of Pete (one of my tutors) i have clarified what i am going to make for my prototypes of my 30 or so shoes of the moment. So this is what i want to prove i can do in the very little time that remains of play.

• Making bespoke electronics
• Integrating (roughly) bespoke and pre made electronics into shoes
• making shoes and shoe parts such as heals
• making both concept and experience prototype videos

The crit is on the 19th of December, 9 days away and i don't know how much sleep I'll get. But then after is holidays and Christmas where i can eat, drink and be merry so for the next 9 days i don't mind working hard. There is a lot to do but I'm ready for it, fingers crossed!!

Wine video and drawing

Ok so I made a video of the wine making shoes in action. also here's the first of my drawings for what i hope they will look like. I want all my shoes to be really stylish and fabulous which i hope they are but these are all open to change. I want them to be edgy.

Rocket Boots

My rocket boots. A fantasy pair of shoes...or are they? here are some pictures of them on people and in action. Enjoy

Wine making shoes

Today I finished my prototype of my wine making shoes. There is also a video of me crushing the grapes which i will upload later. Here we go...
This first image is of me cutting the grapes so they could fit into the capri sun bottle. At this stage of my project my prototypes are quick and rough...very rough.
These are of the shoe mechanics. stand on the capri sun which contains the grapes and walk about. The grape juice flows up the tubing as shown below.
So my carpi sun containers were about 1/4 full and i walked for about 2 minutes and this is the result
Impressive I know. But basic proving of the principle. So maybe instead of wine they could be smoothie makers or soup blenders or even heaters...hum maybe too far. Jon my tutor suggested the name "sole food" which I quite like. Maybe I'll do a range of sole food shoes.

Play

So far in the play section (due for critque in 3 weeks) I have made

• rocket boots and a video of them working which i will up load very shortly.
• A prototype of wine making/grape crushing shoes
• the start or the mechanical fingers for monkey climbing shoes.
• tested and rejected the etch a sketch customisable shoes.
• ordered a heap of stuff and deliberating what to do with them

Goal for end of week: Have all 49 shoes figured out