• WORK

### FASHION, DISCRETIZED HUMAN AND ITS MODALITY #6 – Resisting the world of discretization

###### 20 Oct, 2019

The original text was written in Japanese and published in EKRITS.JP on October 20, 2016.  This post is translated from the 6th section of the original article.

### RESISTING THE WORLD OF DISCRETIZATION

Fashion design by AI is already in development. The discrete mesh that dissects reality will become narrower and the resolution of social visibility will be higher. Under such technological progress, the semiotic analysis (or categorization/classification) that was sought by Barthes, which was originally limited to the analysis of magazine, may be able to cover a larger scope. Then the real nature of social modality and “The Fashion System” at its full capacity will emerge when the scope of analysis is extended to all textual data, images, or even to all the objects that are connected to the internet.
Now, with the capability of analyzing vast amount of data sets, exploring the depth of human society through the superficial exterior, the approach seen in Barthes’ “The Fashion System” has become meaningful again. 1) Then, let “$$L (A_m)$$“ be the set of linguistic representations associated with “$$A _ m$$” where $$A_m$$ is an element of the $$A$$. Roughly speaking, Barthe’s study was about evaluating the relationship between $$A_m$$, and $$L(A_m)$$, by evaluation of the set $$L(A)$$ as a proxy. Now it is possible to inherit Barthe’s study by evaluating numerous numbers of image files and their associated linguistic representations that pertain to these images using a specific natural language process approach. Currently I am seeking a partner who could support this initiative research with me.

At some point, we may waver between hope and despair within the space illustrated by computers. We will be resisting the new symbolism, in a world that holds the risk of uniforming the world through a new type of filtering and classification. A space that portrays reality through discretization; things that lose its’ brilliance, that can only be seen by “I/me”   or the self. When I recall these, the words written in 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami comes to mind.

“If you can’t understand it without an explanation, you can’t understand it with an explanation.”

1Q84 Book2, Haruki Murakami 2)

The strong “I/ me” has always been the one who moved the world that lost its’ mobility, by resisting the uniformization and symbolization. It is the ungraspable modality of “I/ me”, something that is ultimately definite and yet cannot be systematized. The time has come; the time that requires an invention of a new fashion, that hacks the process of the discretion of the world that can further generate a new way of living. The possibility of a new fashion design always emerges from “designing the in-distance.”

[ + ]

 1 ↑ Then, let “$$L (A_m)$$“ be the set of linguistic representations associated with “$$A _ m$$” where $$A_m$$ is an element of the $$A$$. Roughly speaking, Barthe’s study was about evaluating the relationship between $$A_m$$, and $$L(A_m)$$, by evaluation of the set $$L(A)$$ as a proxy. Now it is possible to inherit Barthe’s study by evaluating numerous numbers of image files and their associated linguistic representations that pertain to these images using a specific natural language process approach. Currently I am seeking a partner who could support this initiative research with me. 2 ↑ Haruki Murakami “1Q84 BOOK 2” (2009)