M/th - More than Clothes
Should we outsource our human intuition to Artificial Intelligence? AI is a reality that we are facing today. It has proved itself as a helpful tool that helps us crunch huge amounts of data and has even helped us to learn about ourselves. Is making personal decisions like what we should wear, something that makes a statement about who we are to the world, a job that we can trust in the hands of a machine? We are already experiencing the addition of AI in our music choices and in the ads we see. But where’s the line?
Meet Beatriz
Beatriz Oliva Reid is a designer from Chile with a background in fashion and psychology in design. She loves investigating the power of fashion and clothes. She believes that because getting dressed is something we do everday, that it’s something deeply rooted in our cultural attitude. She recalls that she found her passion for clothes while going to the market with her mother on the weekends. There she could explore trinkets and all sorts of clothing. She found joy in modifying the outfits she found there and mixing and matching them to create new styles and outfits.
Beatriz traveled to Copenhagen and then came to Berlin. She noticed that Berlin differed a lot from Denmark in terms of fashion, because here people here seem much more fluid; fashion trends seem to move much more quickly according to mood or occasion. She is here for one year with the Artist’s Visa, and is using her time to explore new things, which is how she discovered the AULA Future Lab.
Concept
Beatriz intended to start over in Berlin in the fashion industry. So she was afraid at first to take the opportunity with AULA, given that she was not particularly experienced in AI. She decided to take the opportunity anyway, and enjoyed the challenge of studying a new technology after a year of free-roaming in Copenhagen.
Beatriz has always been observant of the clothes of people around her. She loves to hear people say that they don’t care about fashion because of the irony—she feels that not caring at all about what one wears is impossible. We get dressed (pretty much) everyday, and the clothes we choose can say a lot about us. She wants us to start seeing fashion as our friend. Perhaps we can begin to curate our fashion choices and to be more brave and experimental while still being comfortable.
Beginnings
As Beatriz studied AI, she realized that it is everywhere and is a part of our everyday lives. It is a reality in today’s society, so she finds it necessary to explore the positive opportunities available to us, instead of focusing on the potential downsides. She wants to work with AI as a team for making daily decisions, such as what we should wear. She imagines a future where AI knows everything about us and our preferences—perhaps more than we know about ourselves.
If such an AI did exist, could the outfits that it chooses affect how others see you? What happens if our AI’s intuition is just as good or even better than ours, in determining our style?
Project
Beatriz explores these questions in her installation titled “More Than Clothes”. Through an app called “M/th”, an AI uses your personal data to help guide you in your outfit choices for every-day life or for special occasions.
Set in the center of a whimsical room, lit with an array of twinkling lights, is an intimate booth built for one, and made to resemble a changing room at a retail store. After answerting the questions of the survey, the participant draws back the curtain and steps inside to find themselves surrounded by mirrors and a large screen. On the mirror reads “What do your clothes tell about you?”
While reflecting on your own outfit choice, the screen loads with the outfit that the AI thinks might suit you best according to your personality type. After leaving the space, the participant is able to give feedback on whether they liked the choice of the AI or of their own intuition best.
Are we losing something when we outsource our intuition to a machine? If AI will eventually have all or most of our data—who we love, who we hang out with, where we most often visit, what we like to eat—do they know us better than we know ourselves? For Beatriz, our human intuition will always be there for us, and is almost always able to be trusted. AI, perhaps not as much.
With her art piece, Beatriz wants the viewer to leave with a bigger awareness of the power of clothes and how they send a message to the world. If and when AI becomes a part of our daily routine of getting dressed, she wants us to stay conscious of the power of self expression we may be handing over.
