A truly sentient environment – a step towards the civilization many dream of, or an Orwellian nightmare? The idea has floated between our minds and the pages of sci-fi novels for decades, but is finally creeping towards becoming a reality in Spain. Ahead of all major cities aspiring to go ‘smart’ around the world, including San Diego, Yokohoma and our very own Amsterdam, the coastal city of Santander is currently the experiment in progress for this technological vision (Evers, 2013).

Everybody wears clothes. As a matter of fact, wearing apparels is one of the few features that drastically distinguish human beings from other animals. People are so familiar with the concept of having a second skin that one could wear an outfit to simply protect the body whereas another person does it to make a point about his vision of the world, depending on the society in which one lives.