The DXARTS SoftLab is a studio and an online platform whose mission is to examine the role of workmanship in artistic research, to redefine the use of crafting in the post-digital era, and to explore the body as an interface of control and resistance. It is part of the Department of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington in Seattle.
A symposium organized by Sareeta Amrute, Audrey Desjardins, Afroditi Psarra, Daniela Rosner and Phillip Thurtle with keynote talks, round tables, workshops and performances by Morehshin Allahyari, Trinh Mai, Sarah Zewde, Nais Dave, Kalani Young, Azzurra Cox, Gabriel Dattatreyan, Nia Easley, Giulia Tomasello, Juno Parrenas, Doenja Oogies, Nisi Shawl and Constanza Piña.
On Wednesday, April 3rd 2019 we had the amazing opportunity to host at the DXARTS 490: E-textiles & Wearables for Art & Design, the Italian interaction designer Giulia Tomasello talking about her work in the field of biohacking, harvesting and women’ s health, as well as the Chilean artist and performer Constanza Piña, presenting her work with wearables and sound through a DIY electronics and traditional crafting perspective.
a small investigation into the reassembly of everyday nature
A new technique for making embroidery move.
The Stretch Synth is a scarf-sized fabric tube knit on a knitting machine. Stretch Synth is a synthesizer that plays music as you stretch, bend and scrunch a woven tube of fabric. Stretch Synth is both a synthesis of my newly acquired e-textile and physical computing skill sets as well as a preliminary foray into interfaces that ask what meaning can be made in the intersection of technology, form and movement.
Fly High is an interactive experience that combines a video game and performance art. Participants play the game by wearing a dress that is the controller. The dress controls the main character, Baby Mt. Rainier and sends it high into the universe. Chanee is inspired daily by the beauty and visual complexity of Mt. Rainier. The weather seems to change its color and that’s where the Baby Mt. Rainier’s colorful design originated.
This wearable synth was inspired by the complexity of human emotions in conjunction with the comfort of human touch. Housed in a weighted sweater, the user experiences a subtle pressure on their shoulders, while the instrument is being played. Mimicking the feeling of being hugged, the user can squeeze the arms of the sweater, actuating the pressure sensors, intern synthesizing tones.
An interactive representation of a migraine aura. There's a soft pressure sensor built into one side of the cap, so that when you touch that side of the head, the lights blink faster and the origami tessellations move. I tried to capture the surreal psychedelic quality of a typical "fortification spectrum" visual aura.
Daniela Rosner from Human-Centered Design and Engineering (HCDE) visited the DXARTS 490A - E-textiles and Wearables summer 2018 class to present her new book Critical Fabulations and to instruct a hands-on workshop on how to create rope-core memories by exploring the complexity of crafting electronic circuitry.
An on-going collaboration between DXARTS professor Afroditi Psarra and choreographer Stephanie Liapis on e-textiles and dance improvisation taking place at Velocity Dance Center in Seattle.
VHF wearable antennas developed by the Revel Off The Grid focus group at the eTextile Spring Break Camp.
I have been trying different fabrication methods for my music glove project and currently finished laser cutting the circuit from conductive fabric.
Lilypad 328 Simple Board and Bluetooth JY-MCU HC-06 tutorial
eTextile Spring Break camp - a week-long gathering of eTextile and electronic craft practitioners in upstate New York at the Wassaic Project from April 1-8, 2018.
The softLab members met up officially for the first time earlier this month. Here are some of the things we discussed.
A 30-minute live interactive performance brings to life the video game. Five performers embody characters in the game. The player who activates the game summons the performers. Enlivened by the participation of the player, each performer celebrates its birth and marches out into the world. The rhythm of the performance is determined by how fast or slow the player taps the two controllers.
This project is part of an ongoing series that explores how biosignals can be represented and interpreted semantically and poetically, as opposed to visually or sonically. Playing with the idea of the body as an inscription device, and especially of the skin as an “open book", Melyza is a display for a galvanic skin response (GSR) sensor that evokes the skin through an origami structure made out of silicon.
Trials and Errors exhibition at Asociatia Salonul de Proiecte in Bucharest, Romania. Curated by Tincuta Heinzel and Hillevi Munthe. Description of the "FM transmitter sweatshirt" prototype by Afroditi Psarra which is presented at the exhibition.
Her Finger is a series of kinetic finger accessories. It presents a hybrid form of wearable objects, which mingles the functionality and sensuality between an ancient Chinese fingernail guard and a modern female stimulator. The two types of finger related objects create this interesting tension between power and pleasure, external and internal, rigid and soft.
