The Bargain Girl

I started to form my concept from collecting materials on Are.na site.I was inspired by my grandmother and her lifestyle. Bargaining has always been her power to make life better, from a penny at the market to whether or not her family could live from starving, from one Yuan at the fabric store to whether or not a jacket would keep the kids warm in winter. Thus when I collect the material that could be related with the bargain power, I specifically focused on things that are down to the earth, related with daily life and my cultural background.

Are.na channel: Bargain

I pinned up my collected materials related to bargain and roughly grouped them by topics. The topics include the images of people who used bargaining skills a lot, for example elder ladies in China, and how bargain is depicted in pop culture and movies. 

To learn about places where bargain happened, I collected mateials of yard sale farmers market. I also watched things that are not that usual, such as the recording of bargaining for lower medicine price in the medical care system. 

To create an aesthetic. I browsed and collected fashion design of mask, modular fashion suit and sustainabel fashion. Along with examples of cyborg concept art and wearable technology.

Visualize by sketching

My plan of prototyping is to create a bargaining suit for the Bargain girl. After finished collect source materials, I imagined how the Bargain Girl looks like in different circumstances. Consider about the reality, when she goes to bargain in a farmer’s market, her costume might looks different from when she goes to a luxury shop. 

I selected the most convincing design among all the sketchs, which is a suit has similar structure as chain mail. Also electronics and technologies that can help her bargain with systems and machines. 

The weapon of the Bargain girl is a re-designed pricing gun, which is able to produce pricing tag stickers that is common to see in grocery stores. I changed the printed number into discount tags such as 80% percents.

Prototyping - Fashion

To create a modular suit, The first step I need to do is to create a base form with paper. After deciding the shape and size of each module (square and triangles). I need to count percisely by layering paper squares on top of the base. After that, I created a file with percise shape and size in Illustrator as a preparation for laser cut.



To match with the color of pricing gun, i choose to use materials with similar color code, such as black and transparent acrylic board and red yarn. I connected separate pieces together with yarn and created a vest-shaped garment.

Prototyping - Technology

To visualize the “charging” process. I designed this circuit system with a distance sensor and multiple led lights. After something got into the active range of the sensor. The led lights will be turned on following a sequence: blue - green - white - yellow -red. After the red light turns on, the Bargain Girls will recieve a signal that her power is ready to use. Following is a video shows how the lights will be turned on.

Code:

#define PIN_TRIG 17
#define PIN_ECHO 16
#define LED_PIN1 5
#define LED_PIN2 4
#define LED_PIN3 12
#define LED_PIN4 13
#define LED_PIN5 14

float cm;
float temp;
float limit = 100;

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
pinMode(PIN_TRIG, OUTPUT);
pinMode(PIN_ECHO, INPUT);
pinMode(LED_PIN1, OUTPUT);
pinMode(LED_PIN2, OUTPUT);
pinMode(LED_PIN3, OUTPUT);
pinMode(LED_PIN4, OUTPUT);
pinMode(LED_PIN5, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
digitalWrite(PIN_TRIG, LOW);
delayMicroseconds(2);
digitalWrite(PIN_TRIG, HIGH);
delayMicroseconds(10);
digitalWrite(PIN_TRIG, LOW);

Prototyping - Assembling

To create a complete prototype, I need to assemble the modular vest with the circuit. I used my circuit board as a reference, took a new set of sensor and led lights to create a circuit that fly over the costume. 

Consider about the length to extend led form board on my chest to the arm I hold the pricing gun, I selected copper wires that are much longer than the jumper wires. I soldered the wires onto each led light, and connected them back onto my ESP 32 board. 

For the sensor, I did something that’s a little bit different. The sensor has a few extended connect points, which allow me to connect it back onto the board with male-female wires. In that way the sensor can be detached from the suit and use for other projects. 

After the soldering, I hot glued the wires and the board on the back side of the suit so the wires are less visible.

The last part of assembling is to attach the source of power, coupons, onto the vest. I collected coupons from my mail box. Including grocery shopping, fast food, beauty, insurance and investment. I attached them onto the vest with hot glue and my discount tags. At the back of my vest, I constructed a coupon cape to make the costume more like a super hero. To complete this persona, I also created goggles that can hide identity and similar decorations on the pricing gun to unify the aesthetics.

Final Exhibition

For the final exhibition, I made two videos as the background. The first one is the process of myself turning form the everyday me to the alter-ego Bargain Girl. In this animation, my suit will detect an object that is ready to be discounted, the sensor recieves a signal, and the lights will be turned on by sequence. After the charging process finished, I’ll turn into the Bargain Girl and ready to use my power. I’ll enter different places to show my power to everyone I confront with, and negotiate the prices with them.

In the exhibition space. I set up a scene with the power suit, my heroine image, a screen that plays my video and a set of print out with the scene of a gas station and a grocery store. During the demo, I charged my power suit, and printed a discount sticker with my pricing gun. After sticking it on top of the pricning lable of the gas station, the price decreases from 6.499 to it’s half - 3.250.

In this video, the change of price leads to a chain effect from a single gas station to the production of crude oil, and leads to a worldwide oil price decline, it finally leads to a great increasing of plastic production and simulates the supply chain. 

As shown in the video, it finally leads to a decrease of grocery price.

Be mindful that the Bargain Girl is not a savior; she is more like an ordinary person close to you and me, sometimes she’s unable to control the impact of the power.


More than providing a direct solution to all problems, I want to use Bargain Girl to provoke people to think: What does bargain power mean to you? When there are no superpowers, do we have the means to bargain with the system? Who would benefit from lower prices, and who would be hurt? And, what is it that Bargain Girl's power can't shake?