Light, Colour and Textile Matter
We were recently invited to speak as part of a mini symposium “Light, Textile and Colour Matter” on April 21st organised by Dr Berit Grienke, UDK Berlin and Barbro Scholz, HAW Hamburg. The symposium was organised for students embarking on a course in the area of e-textiles, to support students starting to learn about interactive materials, programmable light, the technical principles and conceptual possibilities of soft and wearable circuitry. The focus was to critically engage students with the design of textiles with the addition of electronics and light.
One of the presenters, Sandra De Berduccy, a New Media artist known as Aruma from Bolivia, showed her amazing breadth of work as an independent researcher and weaver. Aruma works with textile as technology, exploring the relationship between nature, processes of traditional Andean weaving, and the languages of new media and electronics. She has spent nearly two decades researching the traditional textile techniques of the American continent, especially of Andean and pre-Columbian textiles. The work has led her to understand the Andean loom as a thinking machine, with a logic that offers a very wide range of possibilities, a model of flexible order to which we are able to treat as collective memory.
e-chimu 2016. Three warp threads: black alpaca fibre, optical fibre and a thin natural alpaca thread as weft. © Sandra De Berduccy
Barbro Scholz presented research investigating the possibilities of using light as worn material on the body. She addresses light as an extension of the body and the social impact of worn light. Barbro is interested in the immateriality of light and code and finding ways to express and communicate this immateriality within the process of design for textiles.
As a result of the symposium we have started a conversation with Barbro about the creative use of data in e-textiles/smart textiles. We will continue to discuss the use of data within the design process and we are sharing areas of common ground within our thinking. We hope to arrange some further sessions to address and express our thoughts on data within smart textile design soon
“Explorers Light-space in Mojave Desert” - prototype tested in rural environment of Mojave Desert, NV.
Pic Credit: Barbro Scholz 2019