Issue 69

Our language contains abundant metaphors drawn from the world of textiles. Craft based and media arts practices share a similar lineage as well as a technical skills base, combined with a sensibility that produces objects designed for human interaction. Both are designed to be experienced – played with, lived with, worn, used, touched and held rather than admired from afar. (more…)

Still a young industry, there are many questions surrounding the validity and usefulness of experiments with smart textiles, textiles and electronics, electro-textiles, wearables and interactive clothing. Is it really practical to integrate hard electronics into our soft and washable fabrics? What’s the difference between an intelligent garment and an interactive garment? (more…)

When I am asked, as often happens both at conferences and informal gatherings, to predict the future of “smart textiles” and wearable technologies, I feel overwhelmed by the breadth of the field and often resort to humour and sarcasm. (more…)

In my personal experience of working with and teaching fashion technology and electronic craft, I have found the artisans are mostly women. While there are many men dominating the wearable technology field, in the task-focused integration of technology and clothing there are a great deal of woman who work with technology for aesthetic, artistic, and fashionable purposes. (more…)

The potential for collaboration between the worlds of fashion and technology have been ever-present since the initial explorations of Hussein Chalayan ten years ago. (more…)

A single connecting thread winds through 300 years of textile and computing history. Without the warp and weft of textile technology, the hardware and software that enable today’s ubiquitous information processing revolution would never have emerged. (more…)

The instincts of ARS Electronica Director, Gerfried Stocker, are difficult to argue with. In every era, ARS (set along the Danube in Linz, Austria) seeks to curate, interrogate, and re-deploy an idea as big as the world – in five days or less. (more…)

Since commencing as the program manager for embracing sound (es) in February 2008, a concerted effort has been made to build industry networks and create programming initiatives to raise the profile and opportunities for sound arts practices in the Australian arts industry. (more…)

A project like Portable Worlds reaches people in different ways. Our intention when publishing a ‘call for work’ is to inspire the creation of a new work, or bring a new audience to existing work. (more…)

Artists and scientists approach creativity, exploration and research in different ways and from different perspectives; when working together they open up new ways of seeing, experiencing and interpreting the world around us. (more…)

If you had wandered into the Adelaide Festival Centre Artspace one evening in March, you might have been surprised to find an exuberant free-for-all of cutting edge creativity, with pensioners and pre-schoolers alike jostling to get their hands on batteries and mini Light Emitting Diodes (LED’s).  (more…)

The performing arts industry in Australia continues to evolve with the growth of new technologies that expand creative expression and engage new audiences. (more…)

Fabric that has sound? Artist Alyce Santoro’s Sonic Fabric is interwoven with sounds of a past life as a cassette tape. We teach you how to listen to them… (more…)