Computational Fashion | Benjamin Maron | Talks at Google
14About the Speaker:
Ben Maron lives a dual life as computer scientist and fashion designer. Since graduating from MIT in 2004, Ben has worked on a number of developments at the forefront of high-performance computation, most recently at IBM where he is a lead architect on the Cyclops (Blue Gene/C) supercomputer team. On the design side, Ben is completing his final year on the BA Fashion Design course at London's prestigious Central Saint Martins, and has worked for notable designers such as Donna Karan and Jonathan Saunders. His goal is to fuse the two disparate fields by creating thought-provoking, technically charged garments, which highlight the striking similarities between the artistry of a complex circuit and of a fabric's interaction with the human form.
Abstract:
Fashion is a fast-paced and glamorous field, but depressing too--about 90% of what people pass off as new fashion is really derivative of other designers, recent or historical. It is that remaining 10% which is closer to art than fashion. It is edgy, challenging, contemporary, and often hard to wear. This is the stuff which acts as inspiration to move the industry forward. Visionary designers in this niche include Issey Miyake, Commes des Garcons, and Hussein Chalayan.
My fashion design aspires to push the same boundaries, but I've got a new trick up my sleeve. Trained as a theoretical computer scientist, I play with algorithms and data sets to let the computer "doodle" all over the body, looking for interesting and unconventional shapes and silhouettes. At the same time, as a designer and student based in the center of London's fashion scene at Central Saint Martins, I have to work to make these abstract results relevant to clothing and culture in general.
I have just begun preparing my graduate collection to be shown in London in May 2008, so I will present a work-in-progress at Google: describing my computational approach to fashion, my engineering background which proves vital to the work, and some recent creations.
This event took place on December 19, 2007 at the Google NY campus.