Not Just Jewellery.

Continuing an accessory theme from my last blog I have decided to take a look at jewellery this week, starting with the ring.

I find ring designs inspiring with a lot of architectural connotations, such as materiality, form, concepts and even story telling. Below are some of my personal favourites.

Linnie Mclarty Jade Mellor

Selda Okutan

This led me to look into digital jewellery. It seems at the moment to be driven mainly by the ability to produce micro sized computers. In 2000 IBM produced a prototype jewellery set, which would work just like a mobile phone. The earrings would have embedded speakers, the necklace a microphone and a ring which they called ‘the magic decoder ring’, which would have LEDS that flashed to indicate an incoming call! Similar developments such as the Java ring have also been developed to unlock doors and log onto computers eliminating the need to remember numerous passwords.

IMB & Java

For me much more interestingly, I came across some research done more recently, right here at Culture Lab. Digital jewellery and family relationships used jewellery as a way of exploring wider objectives, focusing on user centred design.

My favourite piece is “Blossom” shown below, made from wood, glass, silver and vintage stamps.

Jayne Wallace

The jewellery object, in London, is connected to a rain sensor, planted on the participant’s family land in Cyprus. Inside the dome the old Cypriot postage stamps are closed like a flower, attached to a mechanism, waiting to receive a signal sent from the rain sensor. Once the rain sensor has registered a predetermined quantity of rain in Cyprus, which may take months or even years a signal is sent to the jewellery object and the mechanism is activated, slowly opening the petals like a flower blossoming. This acts as a memory trigger to a certain human relationship as well as a specific place.

Now that’s what I call ‘bling!’