“Vironment”: An Art of Wearable Social Distancing
“Vironment” is a series of art pieces, social commentary, technology, etc., based on wearable health technologies of social-distancing, culminating in a social-distancing device that takes the familiar world of security and surveillance technologies that surround us and re-situates it on the body of the wearer (technologies that become part of us). This piece also introduces a conceptual framework for (1) the sensing of the self together with (2) sensing of others and (3) sensing of the environment around us.
The piece shown here detects when someone enters the six-foot boundary designated as an acceptable social distance. A warning appears on the wearable display, marking the approaching figure and their exact angle of approach. Through this technologically mediated form of social distancing, another person’s presence becomes a boundary crossing, a bearing, and an alert.