Zazaziza

We’ve put together a wearable randomness generator and display that, by way of a simple gestural interface, shows hexagrams from the Book of Changes (I Ching).

The Hexagram shirt was inspired by and conceived to fit into the dystopic universe of Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, a novel depicting what the world would have been like during the 1960s, had the Axis won WWII.

In the book, the U.S. west coast is a colony of Japan, whose rule and influence has permeated and dominated Californian society for years. The Book of Changes has become the mainstream method, for Japanese and Californian people alike, to take important decisions in life.

Whenever someone has a choice to make, that person takes out three little coins that are shaken and tossed on a surface several times, the resulting heads and tails data is then translated into one of the 64 hexagrams that comprise the Book of Changes.

In a way, from an absurdist point of view, characters in the book are embracing and surrendering to randomness, almost as if they were saying “Since the ultimate purpose of the universe and my own life is beyond my comprehension, I don’t see how hard, rational cold analysis is in any way a better tool for living than random pieces of wisdom fortuitously thrown at me by the cosmos.” Some of these fictional people would probably be willing to wear a Hexagram shirt.

The shirt itself is a very simple device that allows the 1960s dystopian inhabitant to obtain a hexagram that can be looked up in the Book of Changes. It also works as an active agent of randomness by publicly displaying the hexagram, thus giving onlookers an unsolicited random answer to a question that possibly hasn’t been asked yet. (Which might make some sort of sense in Philip K. Dick’s universe.)

To cast a hexagram, the wearer shakes the sleeves of the shirt (as if he was shaking coins in the traditional I Ching way), this gesture generates a series of clicking noises and random luminescent patterns that ritualistically make way for the final configuration of the hexagram (as shown in the videos.)

Most components* that make up the Hexagram shirt are really old school. Arguably someone could have gathered all the materials and built the shirt in the 1960s, it just uses some clicking-sounding relays, noisy inverters, aluminum foil and electroluminescent sheets. That wasn’t really planned for, it all sort of fell into place, you see.

(*) Okay, the whole thing is driven by a contemporary, not-from-a-parallel-universe Wiring board. So much for the parahistorical accidental accuracy!

Photograph model: Orlando Moreno

Dearest Zazazizung friends: May randomness bring good things for you in 2008. Hold on, since we are invoking randomness here, it’s very unlikely that it will bring good things to all of you, being it so random, you see. On the other hand, since we don’t have that many visitors, let alone friends, then it wouldn’t make the goddess of probabilities go crazy and commit suicide if all of you, imaginary or carbon-based, would have a great 2008.

Anyways, thanks for reading us during 2007. This year sucked, by the way, but next one’s gonna be awesome! Right?

(footage of some EL oracle telling in the form of hexagrams what 2008 will bring!)

Finally we got the EL sheets. Now what? Freakin hell.

An assemblage of reused cardboard, small EL sheets and conductive ink, gives shape to this rapid EL postcard prototype, in which 2 breast-shaped cutouts, upon user activation, close a circuit that makes each EL stamp glow. Pretty simple.

After an experimental first round of EL animal cards, time has come for Zazaziza to move on, aiming to reach new pastures of a more interactive kind. The convergence of paper engineering, origami and electronics is one of the most promising fields in contemporary interaction design, at least according to some internal Zazaziza memos.

We are at the baby steps stage, more prototypes and explorations to come.

Above: Latest and last EL Animal Card and badass ghetto inverter.

Due to a shortage of cheap EL material, Zazaziza regrets to inform the public that there wont be any further production of prototype EL Animal Cards, perhaps some EL stamps are on the way (yeah, we are cheapskates that way.) Our next steps include something more 3-dimensional (origami/paper engineering), now we are looking for cheap A4-sized EL sheets (any colour) and perhaps a couple of venture capitalists.

Well, while the nocturnal bird shows-off with it’s virtuosic EL animal cards, let’s think about the 3D version, why not folding the EL paper in order to have new structure? So, there you go - this sleepy creature is a dog, the kind that shakes its head all the time. A dog, which is trying to be a lamp, you think it becomes a theme here? Luminescent hounds, It might be the next trend :]