Eyeris

A protective wearable that addresses sexual harassment though the eyes of an eerie jacket

Project Vision

A coat that’s speckled with 8 mechanical irises. When the jacket is touched, the irises open to reveal glowing eyeballs

My Role

Designer, maker

Team

Arianna Ninh

Katherine Qiu

George Moore

Silvia Kim

Background and Motivation

We wanted to tackle the issue of sexual harassment, specifically non-consensual touch. It’s common for many people, especially women, to experience inappropriate touching or groping when out alone in public. So, we thought, how can we prevent these violating interactions from happening?

Address sexual harrassment

Touch without consent

#metoo movement

Inspiration

During our initial brainstorming stage, we found numerous psychology research studies that theorized that displaying artificial watchful eyes discourages criminal inappropriate behavior, and encourages people to act more pro-socially.

In addition, the proliferation of cameras in this digital world gives us the constant feeling of being surveilled, which further forces us to self-regulate ourselves and our actions.

So, we decided to combine the visual metaphors of watchful eyes and camera apertures to convey the eerie feeling of being watched. We hoped our wearable would deter potential predators from pursuing non-consensual interaction.

Eye

Panopticism

Camera aperture

Demand attention:Eye is fascinating but creepy

Make it personal: Eye contact has the effect of making people self aware. Knowing that someone is watching you makes you more conscious of our actions. Hence, we also thought to add camera-like features

Eye is fascinating but also creepy
Feeling of being watched
The opening of the iris resembles that of a camera lenses
Proliferation of cameras in this digital world gives off the vibe that you are constantly being surveilled. In essence, this camera like eye forces the “toucher” to self regulate themselves
Provides you with a non verbal/non confrontational way to fend off offenders
Draws on the concept of panopticism where one’s behavior can be modified through disciplinary methods of surveillance. In essence it allows the user to be in control of the situation.

Eyeris

The jacket that has your back!

A coat that’s speckled with 8 mechanical irises. When the jacket is touched, the irises open to reveal glowing eyeballs

Features

Irises that open and close like camera apertures

Actuated by touch

Enhanced creepy effect with LEDs and realistic eyeballs

Brainstorming

We brainstormed different ideas based on several topics of interest.

Social contexts were popular themes

Converging Ideas

After a few brainstorming sessions, we knew we wanted to make a wearable that raised awareness on sexual harassment.

However, we struggled on how and in what way to implement it as a wearable. We brainstormed, scratched, reiterated on various different ideas. These are some of the ideas we entertained:

Shoulder spikes

Electric Shock

Zipper

Eyes

Shoulder spikes - a very literal and aggressive way message of “back away”

Electric shock- to have an immediate warning against unwanted touch

Zipper - inspired by #metoo. The opening and closing of the zipper, is portraying that one is no longer going to zip their mouths

Eyes - The eye is the nature’s mirror that allows one to see into your soul. Gives off a mysterious creepy vibe.

Prototyping

We tested out multiple eye opening mechanisms. Difficulties in 3d printing and adhesion.

Prototyping materials by laser cutting is faster and easier to attach.

Animatronic Eye

3D Printed Iris

Laser Cut Iris

Mechanical Iris

We tried to mimic the mechanisms of this mechanical iris.

Iris Evolution

We laser cut these modules out of acrylic (for less friction) and used various bolts, screws, nuts, to help assemble it. Next we had to account for housing the servo, we made sure to bolt those into a second acrylic piece. To attach the two pieces together, we had to find the right lengths of standups to perfectly line up the servo gear with the mechanical iris gear