Embodying New Media: Computational Fashion, Wearable Technology and New Materialism

• In Event: PRECONFERENCE: Communicating with Machines: Theory and Practice

Abstract

Smart textiles rely on the integration of skills and knowledge from a variety of design disciplines including industrial design, programming and fashion design. Based on a 10-week summer project on smart textiles, this paper describes the ways in which these diverse design disciplines come together along with the communicative and material practices that are necessary to make smart textiles. In this case, smart textiles are digitally knit swatches that integrate dynamic, computational capabilities in order to replicate common digital interactions such as swiping, clicking and pushing buttons. Like 3D printing, digital knitting combined with interactive, digital elements allows for distinct aesthetic possibilities and functionality while, at the same time, introducing new considerations around ethical tradeoffs with respect to labor and sustainability. This paper extends theories around digital materiality in order to understand the possible futures that are coming into focus around smart textiles.

Author

• Laura Forlano, Illinois Institute of Technology