Urbanhermes

Humans use fashion signals to indicate access to information. While fashion is typically associated with clothing, fashion also transpires within the domain of electronic media: weblogs, discussion lists, and online communities teem continuously with fresh, digestible content. A fashionable status - well-informed and well-connected - is demonstrated through a consistent, timely, and meaningful display of newly acquired information. While production constraints of material-based fashions limit the signal refresh rate, ephemeral electronic fashions can cycle as quickly as the flow of information. The challenge we present is to develop physical objects that can go beyond the limitations of their materiality, and to signal with the rapidity of electronic fashions. We introduce the design of urbanhermes as a communicative accessory that integrates the fresh, dynamic, fluid nature of electronic-based fashion signals within the tactile, face-to-face environment of a physical space. This paper presents the design discussion within the framework of fashion as a social signal.