Melissa Coleman

One of my favourite designs of the last year has undoubtedly been Aoife Wullur‘s graduation project at the Design Academy: Shades of Light. For this project Aoife created a series of e-textile fabrics and a room divider with light. The textiles are woven breadboards of conductive threads separated by regular threads. The only visible ‘hard’ electronics in this project are LEDs that have been transformed into a colony of metal spiders, which holds on to the fabric by use of small magnets on the front and back. Rather than projecting the light out of the fabric, these spiders project the light in, illuminating the fabric beautifully, while at the same time avoiding the problem of looking directly into a light source.

Although the work looks great in pictures this is one work you should really see in real life. What distinguishes this work from many other electronic textiles is that you would almost take it for granted. This is a rare quality for an electronic textile. Not only does this seem to be a fabric that is producible by the meter, the design is also reconfigurable, giving one the choice to either stick with Aoife’s design or to make a light design adapted to one’s own interior. This is for sure a product I would be proud to have in my home.

Shades of Light was presented presented at the Final Exam Exhibition of the Design Academy during the Dutch Design Week and the Prototypes exhibition of Ann de Gersem and Jacki Dodemontová that visited Eindhoven, Den Bosch and Breda in the beginning of 2012. You can see Shades of Light at Technosensual in Vienna this summer from 14 June – 2 September 2012.

Using Photoshop for making digital textile designs is well established, but the use of a Wii is definitely not. In her project ‘Movement and Interactivity’ Central Saint Martins’ student Ezgihan Talay uses the Nintendo Wii to update the traditional technique of Turkish marbling. Normally this technique uses colored paint floating on a liquid to create a design, which can be altered by manually moving the floating paints before they are transferred to a fabric. In this reinterpretation of the technique anyone can digitally alter the paints by moving white-gloved hands before a camera, thus creating a design with a decidedly digital look.

Be sure to check out Ezgihan Talay’s other reinterpretations of the technique (including one with thermochromic ink that is to be viewed with 3D-glasses) here.

And for those of you unfamiliar with the technique, here’s a picture illustrating the process of marbling.

In an effort to visualise bacteria cultures the textile collection Bacterial Motility looks to innovative technologies such as Shape Memory Alloys and 3D printing to create the most natural effects.
Bacterial Motility was inspired by the growth of bacteria populations and intends to make the usually invisible bacteria visible, thus creating a second layer on the human body. It is the final collection of Erdem Kiziltoprak, a recent graduate from the Central Saint Martins BA course in Textile Design. I spoke with him about his recent work.

What inspired you to make this collection?

I was exploring single-celled microorganisms and fascinated by the growth, shapes and the movement of invisible membranes in nature, such as bacteria populations. As growth and movement are key aspects of future designs I wanted to take them to a new level. My research question for this project was “How can we translate scientific data into textile design representing a hybrid language in-between science and future design?” In my project I investigated scientific data and methods with textiles in order to find a balance between individual identity and the invisible membranes.

In your collection you transform scientific imagery into textile designs. What methods and techniques did you use to make this translation?

To understand the nature of the invisible bacteria I grew my own bacteria population. During the growing process I did time lapse recording to explore the growth, movement and the amazing shapes of the bacteria, which through the recording became visible. I used different techniques to mimic my bacteria population and their characteristics such as abstract drawings, rusting, 3D crafts, origami, knitting, rapid prototyping and exploring some unusual and smart materials (such as SMAs). During the printing process I used unconventional materials to screen print on silk rather than pigments or acid dyes. I used artists’ mediums, plaster of Paris and sculptors materials for fabric printing. I also used a mixture of black/green tea solution, sugar contents, Kambucha mother (yeast and bacteria mix) and Kambucha tea to grow my own fabric out of bacteria.

What was your motivation for using technologies like 3D printing and Shape Memory Alloys for this specific project?

When cultivating my own bacteria population I was fascinated by the growth and what was becoming visible in little petri dishes. According to time-lapse video recordings I started to draw the shapes of the population, which were very organic. My main idea was to create contemporary body jewellery for men. I wanted to link the different combinations of areas together (Fashion/Textile and Science/Technology) to create a platform for human being and skin flora. I turned my 2D drawing ideas into tangible 3D creations thus creating shadow jewellery, which was a sort of shadow tattoo on the human body representing the growth of bacteria as a second growth layer on skin.

The idea behind my bacteria fabric was same as for the rapid prototyped shadow jewellery. By using the shape memory alloys I wanted to mimic the movement and the slow growth process of the bacteria population. Using SMA was the best way to create that organic soft movement to interpret the movement of my organisms into an engineered textile design.

What made you decide to include porcelain in this technology oriented collection?

I have always been very experimental and like using different techniques and materials rather than the usual ones. Moreover, with contemporary bio-textiles developments, the known approaches and the way that we perceive things has changed. Thus, it is important to blur the boundaries rather than hanging on the traditional way. During my experiments I ended up with a new technique, which is a sort of porcelain but not a real one. With mixing some different sort of materials, my porcelain fringes are %100 bendable and have an organic look. While I was looking at one of my bacteria samples under a microscope, I saw that the bacteria which I grew out of a nail sample in a petri dish was producing shapes which were like tiny soft fringes, like soft moving spiky elements. The idea behind my fringes came only from this sample and it was a completely white bacteria. So I created my body jewellery sample in white as well.

Did using these specific materials and technologies change your design process?

It actually did not change the whole design process but it did change some of my ideas. When you make some mistakes during your experimentations, you sometimes come up with an amazing outcome (like in my bendable porcelain fringes) and you can change your first idea. Thus that happened to me twice in this project. Moreover, exploring the nature of shape memory alloys, especially learning how to train my own alloys, was a bit time consuming. [Ed. Erdem eventually trained his SMA with a heat gun!]

Will textile designers have to broaden their skills into territories not normally associated with textile design if they want to keep up with current developments in design?

I think so. Textile and Fashion are a form of art and it is all about having the potential to shift existing design boundaries and re-shape how we live. Designing cannot be stable and people has to engage fully with the challenges of creating for the 21st century. To broadening the skills in different areas means embracing the new innovations and creating a hybrid language in-between art and design. Thus it is very important for me to explore my work field not only within itself but to include every aspect of life that I can relate and translate into textiles and fashion.

Do you think that new technologies have the capacity to change the aesthetic conventions in textile design?

Yes they have, but in a more innovative and more aesthetic way. It is not just about creating textiles or fashion but it is about creating an incredible link between a form of art and our lives and our needs. The known approaches and the way that we perceive things have changed. The ideas for innovation and creation have to change in the same way. Rather than creating in a traditional way, using technology and science within textile design creates an amazing language between the viewer/wearer and the design itself.

Erdem also elaborated on some of his works specifically.

“My bacterial colony print [Ed. shown below] was originally a silk viscose fabric. However I used artists’ acrylic mediums and a screen-printing liquid mix on it before the printing process. So the actual fabric became a see through, soft / papery feeling fabric, loosing its silk viscose characteristics. Then I printed my design with unusual materials such as Plaster of Paris and yeast. So when the yeast started to produce moulds, I got living bacterial patterns on the fabric. Finally I attached laser cut acrylics, which are my translation of bacteria shapes.”

“This picture [Ed. below] shows my main print design. Before I tailored my silicone and porcelain body piece into a garment shape, I scanned each of the silicone mould pieces into PC. Then I organised them in Photoshop. Then I just mirrored them and got this result.”

Without a doubt this is one of the most elegant methods to create a moving textile that I have encountered thus far. Dynamic Relief by Industrial Design students Fauzi Al-Kaylani, Sander Bogers, Nicholas Nelson and Willem Willemsen uses air to create organic animations in textiles.

The method they used to create Dynamic Relief is not unsimilar to the principle of an inflatable mattress. The textile is made out of several individual layers that are fused together with a heat press. The layers alternate between rubber glue foil to make the fabric air tight and elastic fabric to make the pockets expand. A final fabric layer is added on the outside to make the fabric more pleasant to touch.

By using a laser cutter to cut out shapes into the central layer of double sided heat press foil they created little air pockets in the fabric that expand when air is blown into it. Where the foil is cut into a path the layers do not stick together and air is free to run through the fabric creating a sequential effect that looks more organic than electronic.

If you’ve seen Diana Eng’s Fairytale Fashion Show or the works by Cocky Eek you will know that this is not the first time that inflatables are being used to create a dynamic textile, however this is certainly the most controlled and crisp effect that I have seen. It promises to be a technique that will be copied many times and puts inflatable fashion back on the map, providing a welcome alternative to motors and SMA’s as a technique to create dynamic surfaces.

Dynamic Relief was made during the Intelligent Textiles module at the Wearable Senses research theme at Industrial Design at the Technical University of Eindhoven. The project was coached by Stephan Wensveen and Michel Peeters.

In case you missed it last year: this year the exhibition Pretty Smart Textiles is travelling to Denmark. Pretty Smart Textiles 2011 will be part of Future Textiles, a series of international events on smart textiles organised by the Knowledge Centre for Smart Textiles. The exhibition is taking place at TEKO Design and Business in Herning, Denmark from May 2nd to May 19th 2011.

Pretty Smart Textiles showcases electronic textiles made by Dutch artists and designers, who through their contemplative aesthetical designs are distinguishing themselves on the world stage. This year a number of new works have been added to the exhibition, most notably Intimacy Black by Daan Roosegaarde and Anouk Wipprecht, shown in the picture above, which will be exhibited for the very first time. Other new works include Pseudomorphs, InBetween, E-Pressed, See-Thru-Me, Secret Keeper Gloves, Social Skin and the Lace Sensor Project.

The exhibition explores themes that arise from reflections on technology in today’s society. Some works visualize psychological dimensions and pinpoint difficulties of social interaction, using technology to externalise or complement the imperfections of human beings. Other works in the exhibition grapple with the abstract and clinical aspects of technology, trying to make the invisible visible and the intangible tangible. Then there are those who in their work simply embrace the new possibilities and aesthetics of technology, using traditional techniques like quilting, spinning and knitting, and giving them a new dynamic through sound, movement or light.

Exhibition Days:
Monday 2 May
Tuesday 3 May
Friday 6 May
Saturday 7 May
Sunday 8 May
Monday 16 May
Thursday 19 May

The exhibition is also open for invitees during the events.

Opening Hours: 10:00 – 16:00

Entrance Fee: Free of charge

The brochure can be downloaded here.

Photo Intimacy Black: David Joosten

Pseudomorphs by Anouk Wipprecht

InBetween by Anja Hertenberger

E-Pressed by Anja Hertenberger, Barbara Pais, Danielle Roberts

See-Thru-Me by Meg Grant

Secret Keeper Gloves by Meg Grant

Social Skin by Seçil Uğur and Laura Duncker

Lace Sensor project by Anja Hertenberger and Meg Grant

Ever had a secret that you couldn’t tell anyone? For all those people who really want to spill but shouldn’t wearables designer Meg Grant has made the Secret Keeper Gloves. Watch her explain how it works in this video.

I love the intuitive interaction in this project. The actions that make it work seem to suggest that you’re physically holding the secret in your hands. Also check out the beautiful embroidery and Meg’s trademark: making LEDs pretty by sewing beads together and using them to diffuse the light.