Linda Worbin
Ph D Student in Textile and Interaction Design at The Swedish School of Textiles, University College of Borås and Department of Computer Science and Engineering Chalmers University of Technology.
Subject area: Textile design and smart textiles, dynamic textile patterns
Main focus/research areas: How to design with new smart textile materials. This is investigated by making and designing experimental dynamic textile patterns and physical prototypes. What new design parameters appear in the design process, using smart textile materials?
Functional styling, experimental textile design with smart textile materials
I want to show some examples of dynamic textile patterns, which concerns material experiments, the making of a specific fabric and the building of a prototype. My main interest is textile patterns that involve several different aesthetic expressions. The different expressions can act upon environmental conditions that are more or less controlled. And the textile pattern can express and/or be built up by different kind of information.
One example of a dynamic textile patterns is found in the Fabrication bag that is an accessory to your mobile phone [a completed project made together with Hanna Landin]. The handbag is white with grey dots in a first state, but when there is activity in the phone [that need to be placed inside] the grey dots turns into colourful ones. The dynamic textile pattern on the bag is reversible, and can change from grey and colourful over time.
Other kinds of dynamic textile patterns are textile pattern that is irreversible, that is changing over time, but is not coming back to a specific state [in its aesthetic expression]. The pattern is gradually being built up or tore down. One ongoing project is Irreversible patterns and knitted circuits. [A project made together with Anna Persson] In the project we investigate how to construct and design different electrical circuits to “burn” out irreversible textile patterns.
Questions:
- What new design parameters is Smart Textile materials and computational technology adding to [textile] design? For example time as a design parameter, and how that would affect both the design process, the making and the use of a [textile] product?
- What is a result? A prototype at an exhibition or an academic paper, can it be both?
