Experimental Textiles is a course developed to support our research on collaborations that blend engineering and craft. Students from across CU, at grad and undergraduate levels, can join the class to learn about woven textile structure and techniques for integrating movement or sensing (no prior experience in weaving or electronics is necessary). Students create final projects that explore a concept of their choosing and create at least 4 iterations of that idea before selecting their “final” swatch to document in the class swatch book. We showcase some of the great work from 2023 below.
All course materials, schedule, and resources can be found at extx.unstable.design
Switch Or Swatch
Creative Industries Masters Student Ashley Ebbert created this swatch on an 8-shaft table loom that explores multilayer weaving to create thumb-sized pockets that act as switches when pressed to the base cloth.
Ashely Ebbert, @amebbert
Ashely Ebbert, @amebbert
Light Diffusion + Blue Tarp
MFA student Natalie Thedford continued her material explorations of blue tarp but unpicking its tabby structure in patterns that would reveal different patterns when held to the light.
Natalie Thedford, @nat.thedford_studio
Woven Lenticulars
Creative Industries Master’s Student Sasha Paulovich took inspiration from double weave to create structures that pull open and closed with monofilament and reveal different colors when turned in different directions. She woven these pieces on an 8-shaft table loom.
Sasha Paulovich @sha_longbao
Sophia Huseby
Undergraduate Sophia Huseby created a textile to support fidgeting and tactile play by integrating beads and wire into stripes through the cloth.
Sophie Huseby, @sophiahuseby
Yuchen Zhang
Creative Industries Master’s Student Yuchen Zhang went above and beyond on her cricket loom to reinterpret Starry Night into an interactive textile with a color changing moon.
Yuchen Zhang, @yochen0730
Mimi Shalf
Creative Technology and Design PhD student Mimi Shalf explored cyanotypes in cloth and made prints generated by different weave structures.
Mimi Shalf, @pamimus
Caleb Loewengart
Creative technology and design undergraduate Caleb Loewengart explored color shifting by integrating leno structures into multilayer cloth.
Example gelatin-based fibers produced using our biofiber spinning machine.
Smart textiles combine electronics with traditional textile forms, showing great promise in creating soft and flexible interactive systems for human-computer interaction and robotics. However, they also present significant sustainability challenges as they merge two substantial waste streams: textiles and electronics.
We wrote a paper in the hopes of contributing to sustainability efforts by focusing on the integration of biobased materials that are biodegradable, compostable, and recyclable in the design of smart textiles. We introduced a Desktop Biofibers Spinning Machine to enable smart textile innovators to explore biobased fibers (i.e., biofibers) and envision applications in sustainable smart textiles.
A diagram of the parts used to create the machine.
The paper cited below describes the machine’s design, a usage walkthrough, considerations for fiber spinning, and an exploration of various formulations to make gelatin biofibers. We provide several examples of biofibers integrated into smart textile applications. Finally, we discuss lessons learned from working with biofibers and the unique opportunities our machine brings to the fiber design space in Human Computer Interaction and beyond.
Team: Eldy Lazaro, Michael Rivera, Mirela Alistar, Laura Devendorf, Miles Lewis, Lily Gabriel. A collaboration between the Unstable Design Lab, Living Matter Lab, and Utility Research Lab.
Citation: Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez, Mirela Alistar, Laura Devendorf, and Michael L. Rivera. 2024. Desktop Biofibers Spinning: An Open-Source Machine for Exploring Biobased Fibers and Their Application Towards Sustainable Smart Textile Design. In Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 856, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642387
Team Members: Ricarose Roque, Laura Devendorf, Steven Frost, Mimi Shalf, Celeste Moreno. A collaboration between the Unstable Design Lab and Creative Communities Research Group.
Acknowledgements
This material is based upon work supported by the CU Boulder Office of Outreach and Engagement
Part of the research in the lab involves publishing new research in the area of human-computer interaction, specifically as it relates to ongoing integration of craft techniques and engineering practices. Our most recent research, completed in collaboration with Kathryn Walters, Marianne Fairbanks, and 2022 Experimental Weaver in Residence, Etta Sandry studied how the AdaCAD software we have been developing brings about new drafting practices to weavers.
What is Parametric Design?
Recent versions of AdaCAD have implemented the framework of parametric design to the context of woven draft making. Parametric design isaform of design that creates dataflows between different parameterized operations that generate new outputs, in this case, weave drafts. Changing the parameters and/or elements within the dataflow directly changes the outcome. To put it another way, parametric design has you create and connect together different operations that result in drafts, rather than describing each pixel within a structure directly. For example, the “invert” operation takes an input draft and flips the value of all the interlacements. The “stretch” operation duplicates all of the interlacements in a pic/end the number of times specified.
What operations do, then, is math on drafts. They take a draft as input, modify it in some user specified way, and spit out a new draft. More and more complex drafts can be created by chaining many operations together. In the example below, we create a series of operations that arrange different regions of satins next to each other. The designer can then change the satin structure, or width of the regions, to suit their weaving style or ensure clean edges between satin regions. AdaCAD will also calculate the number of pics needed such that the two satins will repeat at the same intervals when woven.
Making Custom Operations
With each collaborator, we developed a custom operation in AdaCAD to support their specific interests or practice.
With Kathryn, we made an operation that converted her existing notation for layer relationships in a textile into a dynamic operation that could map structures onto those relationships. The notation system assigns each weft to a system (a, b, c or d) and each warp to a system (1, 2, 3, 4). Pairings of warps and weft system can be grouped and assigned layers by putting them in parentheses. The first parenthetical group represents the top /front face layer and each subsequent group represents a layer below. Kathryn then connects structures into the different layer groups to determine the structure of that layer, independent of the others. AdaCAD takes care of the drafting that ensures they are on the correct systems and layers.
With Marianne, we developed the “all possible structures” function that uses the principle of combinatorics to systematically discover every possible combination of lifted and lowered heddles in a 4×4 structure (and there are 10s of thousands of them). AdaCAD lets you browse through every possibility, which Marianne started weaving on a shaft loom to study the effects of the different structures.
and with Etta, we developed a series of tools in AdaCAD that support direct-tie looms as well as techniques for sampling across the width of the cloth. The variable width sampler operation, shown below, allows you to use letters and numbers to describe the tiling of structures across the width of a draft. In the image below we have a20 b40 a20 c40 a20. Assigning tabby to a, and the structures to test to b and c, Etta could create and dynamically resize structural regions so that she could repeatedly weave them with different materials and study the effects.
Parametric Design asWeaving Notation
Through this research, we made an argument that parametric design could be best understood as a notation system for complex weaving that can help weavers formalize and document their draft making processes to both themselves and to other collaborators. It sparked our interest in notation systems more broadly, from sheet music to Fluxus event scores, to woven drafts, and how they foreground certain elements of the making process while leaving others to be considered at another time. And while it takes a bit of brain gymnastics to rethink drafting in this manner, it did come with some interesting new possibilities, for instance, to integrate different algorithmic processes into the design and to greatly lower the amount of time required to make quick changes to ones draft.
Taking significant inspiration from the Penelope Project and Ellen Harlizius-Klück’s article “Weaving as Binary Art and the Algebra of Patterns“, we felt like one of the primary benefits of a parametric design approach to weaving notation is to foreground the inherent algebraic nature of weaving to new audiences in a similar vein to how Harlizius-Klück argues that the jacquard punchcards made the algebraic thought processes of weavers legible to the designers of industrial machines. Notations, in this way, manifest the tacit in incomplete but rhetorically useful ways. In our case, it shows how weaving, and weavers, are performing incredibly complex operations using their own bodies, materials, and minds. It also represents these logics in a framework that is increasingly familiar to those in engineering design.
We are incredibly excited about this project, and the ability to collaborate with weaver’s whose practices continue to inspire us and we would like to continue developing AdaCAD to support weavers. If you are interested in learning more, you might consider attending one of following (or looking for talks recorded at these events) or just getting in touch. We’d love to hear from you.
Upcoming Events
April 22-28 Laura will present this research at the CHI Conference in Hamburg Germany
June 23-25 Laura will lead a panel with Kathryn Walters, Marianne Fairbanks, and Etta Sandry about AdaCAD at the Digital Weaving Conference.
June 26 We’ll host a AdaCAD Workshop at the Cleveland Public Library for those interested in attending.
Play with AdaCAD
Its free and always available online at adacad.org
Read the Full Paper (its just a pre-print now and will be published in May 2023):
This publication includes a workbook on weave structure as well as a reflection on how HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) researchers might look to craft publications for inspiration when communicating the contribution of craft-oriented research. The workbook included in this publication is intended for HCI researchers to learn the fundamentals of weave structure in the context of weaving force sensors. The project emerged in collaboration between the lab and Experimental Weaver in Residence Etta Sandry and our shared interests in communicating the technicality and fundamentals of weaving to broad audiences.
You can read the full publication on Issuu, however, you will be able to download when it becomes officially published in June.
Citation:
Laura Devendorf, Sasha de Koninck, and Etta Sandry. 2022. An Introduction to Weave Structure for HCI: A How-to and Reflection on Modes of Exchange. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 629–642. https://doi.org/10.1145/3532106.3534567
Wearables are often a primary means of collecting data on the body and in-situ. The data collected upon wearables can shape or record interactions in real-time, prompting practices like self-care and reflection. In this work, we became intrigued by textile structures that were non-digital, but in themselves “stateful”. We explored how these textile interfaces can fit meaningfully into the lives of people with disabilities as sensors and display. Our study revealed interesting practices that emerged for self-tracking that were qualitatively unique in their close relationship to the body and deeply physical modes of engagement. Our findings offer insights into (1) qualities of textile interfaces that are important to people with disabilities, (2) new forms of data that people found to be worthwhile in tracking, and (3) knitted interfaces for sensing and display.
Citation: Annika Muhlbradt*, Gregory Whiting, Shaun Kane, Laura Devendorf. Knitting Access: Exploring Statful Textiles with People with Disabilities. Forthcoming at DIS 2022.
an array of forms created with biofoam, a foam-like form created from gelatin
Each new material developed opens a broader pallet of aesthetic and functional possibilities for designers. This paper demonstrates biofoam, a material that is water-soluble, biodegradable, and can be made conductive. We describe the material in detail: the process of making the material from scratch, the material’s fabrication into forms with hand-craft techniques, and present two HCI specific applications of the biofoam. The biofoam can be cooked, molded, layered, extruded, dissolved or recooked opening up possibilities to consider the entire life cycle of the material in the design process. We contribute design considerations to allow designers to “tune” the biofoam to the desired quality, as well as a characterization of many aspects of the biofoam such as compression, spring back time, water permeability, and electrical conductivity. Finally, we discuss the unique opportunities this material and its life cycle bring to the design and HCI communities.
Citation: Eldy S. Lazaro Vasquez, Netta Ofer, Shanel Wu, Mary Etta West, Mirela Alistar and Laura Devendorf. 2022. Exploring Biofoam as a Material for Tangible Interaction. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’22), Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1525-1529. https://doi.org/10.1145/3532106.3533494 (June 13-17, 2022—Virtual Event, Australia).
A few years of workshops on textiles, combined with an obsession with Sister Corita Kent, has given rise to a card game that we call “Objects of Care”. This card game walks plays through a design exercise reflecting on objects that provide “care” to them, and then creatively interpreting the care in those objects in different ways.
If you are interested in getting a deck or learning more about the project, please email us at unstabledesignlab@gmail.com.
Sasha will be presenting this project at the Design Research Society conference in July 2022.
Citation:
Sasha de Koninck, Laura Devendorf. Objects of Care. Forthcoming Design Research Society Biannual Conference 2022.
Upcoming:
Stay tuned for a link that allows you to upload ideas generated from the game here.
When I first watched an ASMR video I was both fascinated and confused. I found these videos to be fantastically strange because they had an uncanny way of taking conventionally boring objects and situations and turning them into a source of interest and relaxation for millions of people. I wondered if the way that we interact with ASMR videos is reshaping our relationships with technology. Or perhaps indicative of some cultural shift that is already underway. Over the course of a year, I worked with Laura to gain a deeper understanding of ASMR related media and whether or not it could be relevant to the design of technology, specifically the wearable kind. This project included: an indepth look at ASMR videos on youtube and tried to isolate their unique aesthetic qualities; a pilot study where users took home a “sonic toolkit” in order to understand how “ASMR-like” sounds relate to everyday life; and an interview with a Melinda Lauw, a “live” ASMR creator. The project culminated in the creation of two interactive garments that are based off of Laura and I’s individual interpretations of how ASMR videos can inspire wearable technology for connecting meaningfully with our surroundings.
Designing early concepts for impossible sonic garmentsThe screaming coat triggers audio playback to breath, allowing one to scream with their samplesThe listening jacket sound amplifies and distorts environmental sounds, like the satisfying clicki-ness of this keyboard.
To learn more about the garments as well as all of our different ideas surrounding ASMR and design please check out the paper!
Detail on the Teensey Audio Controller used in both coats
