#e-textiles

The Crying Dress

Visit the video to hear the dress cry:

https://youtu.be/UWM_JVvnNyE?si=19mQHf7TutlRdSaC

The story behind the dress (from the website) :

"In 2020, the global economy is in shambles. Localized production and craftsmanship experiences it’s first major boom since it’s decline preceding the 1920′s Industrial Revolution. The electronics sector in particular is hit by a scarcity of resources, causing prices to skyrocket. Electronics, previously known for their uniformity and quantity, almost overnight become a showcase for individuality, materiality and skilled labor. This development is now commonly known as Exquisite Electronics and today we live in a world where the rich commission extravagant Haute Couture electronics reminiscent of pre-industrial eras.

In 2028, the artisans KOBAKANT were commissioned to make an Extravagant Electronic funeral gown, also known as The Crying Dress. The gown was worn by the wife of the deceased commissioner in attendance of his funeral, where the dress shed endless tears of mourning. There has been much speculation on the commissioner’s motivation for ordering the gown prior to his death, but it is widely believed that he intended for it to console his wife and accompany her mourning."

Credits (from the website) :

video: Kristina Kiremidjian

photography: Flo Wiesers (www.florian-wieser.com)

model: Annette P. (www.motheragency.at)

ArtFight attack for @gelatinouscvbe, had a lot of fun with this one and I am going to be so sad to dismantle it so I can re-use the screen.

Smart textiles sense how their users are moving | MIT News

Using a novel fabrication process, MIT researchers have produced smart textiles that snugly conform to the body so they can sense the wearer’s posture and motions. By incorporating a special type of plastic yarn and using heat to slightly melt it — a process called thermoforming — the researchers were able to greatly improve the precision of pressure sensors woven into multilayered knit textiles,…

Electronic Textiles: Properties, Types, Manufacturing and Applications #etextile #smarttextile #electronictextile #electronictextiles #smarttextiles #etextiles

Electronic Textiles: Properties, Types, Manufacturing and Applications Sikander Anwer Department in Textile Engineering University of Management & Technology, Lahore, Pakistan Email: [email protected]   History: Electronics in textiles is an emerging interdisciplinary field of research that brings together specialists in information technology, microsystems, materials and textiles. E-textile…

A young person today has more. There is just more of everything, better technology, more information, tutorials, obscure materials, etc. When I think back to my own secondary education the options were very fixed and traditional, computing was in its inception and the goto classes for crafting fell to Wood & Auto Shop or Home Economics. We now have DYI mentality and a strong maker movement, augmented with readily available materials source from all over the globe. In her 2012 Ted Talk Leah Buechley paints an amazing picture of whats possible with sketching up circuitry such a cool concept and highly creative. I tried to search up where this tech was today in 2020, and was surprised to find very little how silver ink pens have evolved. I did however discover a cool software app that makes it easy to create complex circuitry and test it all within the application. Albeit this would only appeal to an electrical designer so a bit out of reach for the K-12 set but it does highlight the advancement of electronics to prototype and test at a much accelerated rate. I believe the “moores law” effect also applies to the speed of creative development giving rise to integrating electronics into nex-gen creative endeavors.  Back to the fundamentals of the EQ, I would argue that using a computer to design museum installations in Minecraft is an example of crafting with electronics. But another approach could be using electronic tools such as stylus type pens for graphical input or a 3doodler to create 3D art.  I was working at Apple when the first apple pencil was released and have to laugh as Steve Jobs was famous for saying “Who wants a stylus. You have to get em and put em away, and you lose em” The apple pencil is essentially an electronic device that augments a simple tool: the pencil. This is a great segway into the Arduino/Raspberry Pi/Microduino world and for myself is the most relevant example of electronics and creativity for educational & professional purpose. This also answers my question of Leah Buechley and “were are they now”. Leah went on to create LilyPad Arduino and more recently Sew Electric DIY e textiles guide. Great example of how the very act of being creative in this case with electronic components can lead to new things. Which I think answers the viability question and even inverts it to ask how are electronics not viable tools in the creative process? 

References:

Mellis, D. A., Jacoby, S., Buechley, L., Perner-Wilson, H., & Qi, J. (2013). Microcontrollers as material. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction - TEI 13. doi: 10.1145/2460625.2460638