CharmingBurka: Bridging Gaps and Lifting Veils via Bluetooth
February 15, 2008
I visited BoingBoing - one of my favorite blogs - for the first time in [too long] a while, and, as usual, encountered a post of great interest and intrigue: CharmingBurka:
CharmingBurka
A project by Markus Kison.
Synopsis
The CharmingBurka sends a self-defined picture of the wearing person to every mobile phone next to it. Laws of the Koran are not broken.
Project description
The Charming Burka deals with Freud's idea that all clothes can be positioned between appeal and shame. The Burka was chosen, because it is often perceived in the west as a symbol of repression. A digital layer was added so that women can decide for themselves where they want to position themselves virtually. The Burka sends an image, chosen by the wearer, via Bluetooth technology. Every person next to her can receive her picture via mobile phone and see the women's self-determined identity. The virtual appeals can not be gathered by the laws of the Koran and so the CharmingBurka fulfills the desire of living a more western life, which some Muslim women have today.
Therefore the Burka is equipped with bluetooth antenna/micro-controller and uses the OBEX protocol, already working with most mobile phones.
Sponsor / technology
The prototype is realised with the bluetooth marketing solution Bluebot developed by Haase & Martin, the mobile marketing company in Dresden/Germany.
This looks like a religious[ly]-inspired variation on the theme of "seeing and being seen" exemplified by the Nokia Sensor application (among others). I don't think any of these applications have achieved mass (or even signficant niche) market appeal, but they are provocative and inspiring, on a number of levels.
It appears, from a video on the site, that the CharmingBurka charmed the crowd at the recent Seamless 2008 fashion event in Boston, but I do wonder whether / how this innovative mechanism for bridging the gaps between people by bridging the gaps between online and offline worlds - and thereby [virtually] lifting veils - would truly be accepted in a region (or even an event) with a higher concentration of Muslims ... or whether it would truly be desired by many Muslim women (living in Muslim countries). It seems to me that this kind of technology would increase the risks for such women, especially as the description of the design suggests that the user has no control over who is offered a virtual peek behind the veil.
The Bluebot site references a number of other events - including a Leipzig trade fair, a wedding fair and a Bavarian night club - in which other Bluetooth marketing systems (I see the CharmingBurka as a personal marketing system) were deployed, but the latest was in October 2006 ... leading me to [also] wonder whether / when their innovative technology will cross the chasm from novelty into commercial success. I suspect the success of such systems lies along trajectories wherein the technology is solving problems that people truly experience ... in ways that don't put them at [even greater] risk.