Stitching Worlds

Stitching Worlds connects the shared artistic research territory between arts, design, open culture, digital fabrication, information technology and electronics to the engineering and scientific methodologies of textile technology. The project investigates textile technology as a controversial means for digital fabrication, particularly of the electronic object, based on two premises explored in former artistic research. Patterns in knitting, weaving and embroidery are essentially equivalent to digital codes in rapid manufacturing. Since patterns can be saved, copied, and distributed, textiles can be manifested in their physical form at different times and places, over and over again. Moreover, with the advent of electronically conductive fibres, it might be possible to adapt the use of textile machinery to translate patterns into electronic functions. Altered processes and materials can be used to produce electronic components such as resistors, capacitors, inductors, and eventually complete electronic appliances. Distinct from projects that combine textiles and electronics from technological and fashion design perspectives, we place Stitching Worlds within the laboratories of experimental design. In doing so, we open the field for artistic inquiry that is not limited to technological research but reflects on broader implications of such research on values and practices in culture. The project decisively questions whether `what` we make is really more important than `how` we make things. Instead of introducing new products that meet new buyers, we collaboratively explore new production procedures that call for new makers. What if electronics emerged from knitting, weaving and embroidery? How would technology be different if craftspeople were the catalyst to the electronics industry, via textiles manufacturing? The project is carried out in four parallel tracks of investigation simultaneously and in interaction with one another. (1) `Experimentation` is a technological research track in collaboration with textile technology and electronics experts into possibilities of knitting, weaving and embroidering passive electronic components. (2) `Theoretical study` gains richer insights into the transdisciplinary topics of the speculations and counterfactual thinking with experts of economy, technology, politics and materials science and feeds the other research tracks with the necessary theoretical awareness (3) `Speculation` is an aesthetic investigation into prototyping objects and installations, discovering new forms of artistic expression that manifest the research in embodied and provocative ways. Finally, (4) `Reflection and Dissemination` is targeted at enhancing our understanding of our own practice within a larger field of contemporary mode of artistic production. Stitching Worlds is designed to trigger the creation of `tactual tales` made of textiles. Objects and installations will expose narratives from plausible-fictive worlds and counterfactual futures in which the worlds of fabrics and electronics are combined in novel ways. The outcome of this artistic research project will be exposed to larger critical audience through an exhibition and a publication.

Stitching Worlds explored textile techniques as controversial means for manufacturing electronic objects, with a particular focus on the potentials of utilizing traditional decorative metal threads for their electrical properties. Conducted with critical and artistic intentions, the questions posed during the research project included the following: What if electronics emerged from textile techniques such as knitting, weaving, crochet, and embroidery? How would technology be different if craftspeople were the catalysts to the electronics industry, via textiles manufacturing? By revealing unexpected potentials of often-undervalued techniques, knowledge and skills, the project provided a platform to discuss commonly unchallenged societal value systems and their implications. Stitching Worlds rested on three crucial backdrops: (1) the physical textile-electronics workshop at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, (2) the research blog of the project (www.stitchingworlds.net) and (3) the transdisciplinary and international network of experts from such fields including design, media arts, textiles engineering, electronics engineering, textiles restoration, media archaeology, and economics. The research was carried out in three consequential thematic phases: (1) Crafting Realities, (2) Macro-Electronics and (3) Alternative Histories, Counterfactual Futures. In terms of methodology, the research was organized in four parallel and interconnected tracks: (1) hands-on experimentation on creating textile-based electronic components at both handcrafting and industrial levels, (2) theoretical study into the broader, transdisciplinary topics of the project, such as histories of electronics and textiles, and field research in order to disclose undervalued or underused textile techniques, skills and manufactories, (3) continuous speculation through prototyping objects and installations, and discovering new and stimulating forms of artistic expression and (4) reflection and dissemination towards understanding our own practice within the larger field of contemporary modes of artistic production. Highlights of the project results include the design of new tools for potential textile-electronics craftspeople, the investigation into recording sound on steel fibers, and the invention of a textile-based electromechanical relay towards handcrafting an electromechanical computer. During the course of the project, about a dozen research articles and several news articles and magazine features were published, two dozen conference papers and public talks were given, and different stages of the project were exhibited at international venues. The project was concluded with a final exhibition and an accompanying book. The exhibition showcased five innovative artistic installations as well as a reconstruction of the Stitching Worlds workshop at Angewandte Innovation Laboratory (AIL) in Vienna on 927 April 2018. Entitled Stitching Worlds: Exploring Textiles and Electronics and published by Revolver, the book maps out the marginal research space of the project outside of industrial and profit-oriented research and includes interviews and articles as well as a catalogue of the artistic processes and the results of the project.