Tag: sasha de koninck

Experimental Weaving Residency Provocations

An Intro to Weave Structure for HCI

Post author By unstabledesign
Post date May 18, 2022
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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, Etta Sandry. An Introduction to Weave Structure for HCI: A How-to and Reflection on Modes of Exchange. Forthcoming at DIS 2022.

Full Publication and Talk:

Coming in June 2022

Notes:

We will be reforming this activity book into an interactive format that’s linked with AdaCAD. Stay posted.

Tags Etta Sandry, laura devendorf, sasha de koninck

Provocations

Objects of Care

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.

Tags laura devendorf, sasha de koninck

Provocations

Unlearning the Garment from the Body

Post author By unstabledesign
Post date May 4, 2021
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Check it out on Sasha’s Site

Tags sasha de koninck

Open Source Public Resources

Prototyping Smart Textiles – A Reader

Post author By unstabledesign
Post date March 3, 2021
No Comments on Prototyping Smart Textiles – A Reader

In support of our newly developed class, we found ourselves writing a reader to explain different techniques, material sourcing and structures of textiles that could be leveraged for so-called “smart” applications (but if you read our intro, you see we get into a bit more complexity on that). This has been authored by Laura Devendorf, Sasha De Koninck and Steven Frost but it is available via Github so you can contribute as well if you so wish. You can find the complete book at the link below:

Click here check out the book

Tags laura devendorf, sasha de koninck, steven frost

Open Source Public Resources

Soft Object Open Curriculum

Post author By unstabledesign
Post date March 3, 2021
No Comments on Soft Object Open Curriculum

We developed a course and curriculum for teaching textile structures to an audience of students interested in engineering and physical prototyping. We have released this course, as well as our materials lists, kits, and assignments, as an open education resource here: https://unstable.design/soft-object/_book/

Tags laura devendorf, sasha de koninck, smart textiles

Provocations

A Fabric that Remembers

Post author By unstabledesign
Post date August 4, 2020

A Fabric that remembers is a fabric that remembers how and when it was pressed. It does this using 6 embedded pressure sensors and a microconroller that trasmits data to the web. It is a fabric with its own website, which you can explore here:

The fabric is currently on display at Accenture Labs in San Francisco and uses both the fabric and tablet to visualize touch in realtime. The constraint that guided the work was to get as much of the circuitry as possible embedded into the fabric. Thus, for the e-textiles nerds out there, you might be happy to know that all of the wiring for the resistive sensing and voltage dividing is embedded into the fabric by way of using different resistance yarns. We have included all of the swatches I made in preparation for the final design for reference.

Authors on this project are Laura Devendorf, Sasha De Koninck, Shanel Wu and Emma Goodwill.

This image shows the fabric as it would be rendered as a circuit. The structure consists of six voltage dividing circuits wired in parallel to a common power and ground. The first resistor is a fixed value resistor and the second is a variable resistor that changes measure with the application of force.

The fabric on view at the Center for Heritage Arts and Textiles (CHAT) in Hong Kong as part of the “Interweaving Poetic Code” exhibit.

Want to know more of the technical details?

You can checkout all of the code, interface specs, and weaving files at https://github.com/UnstableDesign/A-Fabric-That-Remembers

Tags accenture labs, emma goodwill, sasha de koninck, shanel wu

Provocations

Knotting. Knotted. Knot.

Post author By Sasha De Koninck
Post date July 6, 2020

Knotting began for me as a way to mark time. But as our lives changed because of the impact of the coronavirus, knots evolved into an exercise to ease anxiety. It was now a way to mark time and emotion. My relationship to time and memory has changed a lot since we began ‘staying-at-home’. I feel the passage of time more acutely. I have a hard time remembering when something happened. Maybe it was only one week ago, but it feels like months have passed.

Uncertainty and instability have become trendy words because of the coronavirus. The things in our lives that we perceived as stable or certain are no longer seen or felt that way. I wanted to explore this idea of uncertainty/instability in relation to garments and textiles. Garments are often referred to as a second skin, or security blanket. What happens when they fall apart? Sweaters and knitwear have the potential to unravel. Clothing can wear out, or tear. But I wanted to think about designing for falling apart. Or more specifically, dissolving.

What if the act of wearing a garment causes it to fall apart? The moisture produced by our bodies has the potential to cause a garment to come apart, or in this case, dissolve.

‘Knotting. Knotted. Knot’ is the first iteration of this research. ‘Knotting. Knotted.Knot’ uses water soluble embroidery interfacing as the ground for knots to accumulate. Instead of making an identifiable garment, I instead kept the embroideries in the abstract forms that they took, expressing the state of the emotions that the knots are keeping a record of.

https://studiosdk.net/Knotting-Knotted-Knot

Tags craft, sasha de koninck

Provocations

Research Lab of Ambiguous Futurology

Post author By Sasha De Koninck
Post date July 3, 2020

The Research Lab of Ambiguous Futurology creates heirlooms for the future. At the lab, Sasha studies future scenarios and creates wearables in response to those futures. We are living in uncertain times, some might even say, ambiguous times. The Internet of Things is evolving into the Internet of Disposable Things. Our technology is becoming smaller and cheaper to produce. We are creating so much waste, and have no ways of processing it. What is the future we are creating for ourselves?

At the Research Lab of Ambiguous Futurology, we want to create objects for you to preserve for future use. An antique heirloom is traditionally a used object which is preserved to be passed down to future generations to treasure, but its usefulness has typically passed. A future heirloom is an object whose usefulness has not been used up. You preserve your future heirloom for future use. And once it can no longer serve its purpose, it must be repurposed, recycled or revised.

Tell us about a future, and we’ll make you something to wear for that future.*This call is for Future Heirlooms that will be a part of an exhibition from September 23-December 16, 2022. You will not receive your Future Heirloom until after the exhibition has closed in December*.

Link to Participate:
Future Heirloom Form

Full Project Webpage:
ambiguousfutures.com

The Research Lab of Ambiguous Futurology has popped up at:

B2 Center for Media Arts and Performance, Boulder, CO

Responsible Fashion Series, Royal Academy of Art Antwerp, Belgium

Chicago Cultural Center

Upcoming Solo show at Salisbury University, Maryland

Tags ambiguous futures, sasha de koninck

News

Soft Object – A New Course to be Offered in Fall 2020

Post author By unstabledesign
Post date April 23, 2020

Laura Devendorf and Sasha de Koninck are designing a new course to be offered in Fall 2020, Soft Object. The course will cultivate a community of material researchers seeking to make soft things that expand how we think of interactivity. While starting with soft circuits, the class will support material investigations with novel techniques for textile structure, growth, computation and decomposition. Students will learn about different soft material structures, properties, and possibilities. As a course, we will develop, refine, and publish novel techniques for smart/functional fabrics in the form of a physical and open source digital “swatch book.” Students we will think about the history and future of textile and soft-object making, while conducting their own material investigations.

We are designing the course to run mostly virtually. If you are a CU grad student or undergraduate student, please join us. If you are an interested global community member, please get in touch with us via unstabledesignlab@gmail.com as we may look to develop a forum for public engagement and critique.