We present ‘Take Back Your Body, Imagine Your Digital Self’. This is an interactive, digital media installation, exhibited at ‘Designing Data Humans’ as part of the 2024 Edinburgh Science Festival. The brief was to interrogate the fashion sector through a data lens, creating a digital interactive installation using emerging digital technologies.
We have used data to both inspire and realise our concept. A 2021 body image survey of the UK population found 80% of the population think that fashion companies have a negative impact on their perception of body image and 31% would describe their body as ‘Average’. We challenge the term ‘Average’ and question what an average body type is.
By extracting the data from the size charts of Uniqlo, GAP and ZARA, we compiled a library of avatars that visualises the sizes of XS, S, M, L, and XL.
Motion tracking is used to create an interactive abstracted human form. This ‘blob’ shape represents the real body of the user, as it is the body of the user that controls the form of the shape.
We are not the prescribed body image of the fast fashion companies, but rather the unique, playful form that is created through the presence of their real bodies.
