Abstract

In this essay, we extend prior discussions of user interactions with wearable devices, framing these interactions in the context of identification and rhetorical invention. We identify the limitations of the preset identifications made available by the logic of what we term screened wearing, a representationalist framework for understanding wearable devices and the data they produce. In contrast to these logics, we identify the inventional opportunities for wearables enabled by what we term diffractive wearing, an open-ended approach to wearables that situates data within larger systems of activity.