Digitisation

Countries involved: France, Italy, Finland

As result of the synergy between the French design studio Arkellia, the Sicilian SME Eithne and the Finnish arts and crafts association Modus, WEAR-ABOUTS creates clothes for children connected to a specific geographical place and interactive so that they can be “read” through a dedicated app.

This project wants to explore what would happen if the illustrations could get out of the books and turn into textile designs on clothing, what they would say about the intriguing stories that inspired them and how they would speak to the wearer.  WEAR-ABOUTS explores new educational approaches based on intelligent illustrated models such as interactive cultural products that operate on the border between illustration, education, tourism and fashion.

“WEAR-ABOUTS – says Laetitia Barbu of Arkellia (France) – creates clothes for children that are inspired by a specific place and act as intelligent experiential tourist products that establish a deep connection between that place and the wearer. They allow young people and families to discover a region / area visited in a new and unconventional way, in particular using augmented reality.”

The innovative WEARABLE PLAY project is all female! Researchers and designers Michaela Honauer, (Germany) Secil Ugur Yavuz (Italy) and Kristi Kuusk (Estonia) have come up with a way to create a balance between the time children spend in front of a screen and physical play. Thus Worm-e was born, the prototype of a soft and interactive puppet capable of involving children by encouraging them to interact. The toy, soft and colorful, acts as a link between the physical and digital world thanks to a specially created app that monitors the game modes and records the results, issuing a notification when the child spends too much time in front of the screen.

Worm-e was born to the realization that the little ones interact more and more with electronic devices that allow them to play, learn and communicate through a screen. All this, however, can create problems regarding their well-being as being in front of a screen reduces movement and the possibility of interaction. “To improve the well-being of this generation of increasingly technological children, we must not neglect the existence of digital technologies, but on the contrary, it is necessary to find new ways to make them coexist with the physical world that we perceive and experience through our body”, says Michaela Honauer.