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Tamara Hoogeweegen University: Faculty: Theme: Project:
TU Eindhoven Industrial Design Wearable Senses Crafting beta-textiles
Coach: Year:
2nd year, 1st semester Jos van der Weele januari 2014
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Contents INTRODUCTION 5 Objective 7
design challenges
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Process 9 Research phase 11
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design documentary 11 the main findings: 11 Body gestures 12 Amy Cudy 13 exactitudes 14 Inspiration 17
iterating 19 color grey 19
Findings 23 Experience test 24 Main conclusions: 25 midterm reflection 25
translating open.close into textile Origami shaping 27 leather craft 29 Graphite 33
finalizing concept 39 future developmentS & critique 40 Reflection 41 References 43 Appendix 1 44
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INTRODUCTION
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opENCLOSE translates open and closed body posture into a beta-textile crafted from leather, led’s, latex, and graphite. A research was don on the effect of forcing body postures with wearables, this was then translated into a material exploration. The material exploration focused on craft, natural materials combining with technology. The translation is meant to make people aware of the world around them as I believe that people are hiding more and more in a closed posture, behind their smart phones. The opENCLOSED material relates to my vision which is to make poetic designs while integrating innovative technology to solve problems, rise awareness or create poetic experiences.
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Objective • Which combinations between textile crafts and new technologies can bring relevant innovative solutions for everyday practices? • How can ‘old fashioned techniques’ like knitting, weaving or lace making benefit from scientific knowledge in mathematics, programming and modelling by looking at them as programmable material (beta-textiles)? • How can new technology integrated in textiles change the nature of the garment, how can this contribute to for example new forms? • How can the integration of new technologies enhance a new way of customization of garment fit (comfort) for the creation of individual identify? • How to drive creativity and inventiveness that emerges through practice and knowledge of material properties and workshop settings? (2013, Crafting Beta-textiles)
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The project Crafting beta-textiles aimed at merging craft and electronics into meaningful and aesthetically pleasing solutions to transform society and the local textile industry. The fusion of crafts and technology means doing a series of textile explorations, so called beta textiles. By making different ways to fuse sensing and actuating technologies with traditional crafts and their meanings could contribute to bring interaction design close to the body in a meaningfull way. The project aimed to learn from the past and translate it to the future. Not just the techniques but also the relation to culture, traditions, social habits etc. shall be picked up. By combining crafts with new technologies, such as smart materials that can react to light, heat, movement or modern tools one could create wearables that enhance specific moments of people’s lives. The goal was to end up with a well-contextualized aesthetical product.
Different design challenges or research questions were proposed:
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Process This project had very much an explorative nature. This project went through different phases. The phases are based on the model of Reflective and Transformative design, developed by C. Hummels and J. Frens (2009). This project can be divided in two parts, the first until the step ‘What next?’ and after. The first part focused on research of forcing body postures, and the second part was the translation to a Beta-textile
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Research phase
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People move similar ways, but every person has their own way of moving and doing things. The relation of people their identity, their clothes and their actions are closely related. A design documentary is a way to get acquainted with the people and their needs. People often don’t know what they want or need, by observing, asking about their lives, involving your-self and arguing, you try to take a look into people’s minds. (Tomico: 2013) design documentary The executed design documentary observed two situations: students studying in the university library and a student at the bus station. In this design documentary the behavior, movements, and posture of the students was obthe main findings: served. (Scan left page with the Layar app to see the video. • An unconscious working position, but a conscious need to change their position from time to time. • Music can create a private and undisturbed working space. • At the station the interviewee lans were to stand, takes an unconscious posture, wears a watch and likes to keep himself busy (eg. phone) .
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SIGNALS HAVE TO DO WITH NERVOUS NESS. TO CREATE A BARRIER BETWEEN ONESELF AND THE OUTSIDE WORLD.
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Body gestures Body postures influence the way people are perceived, this often happens on an unconscious level. The infographic gives an overview on body language.
LEGS & FEET
ARE KNOWN FOR BEING MORE AUTHENTIC, BECAUSE IT’S HARDER TO FAKE OR DO CONSCIOUSLY. LEGS ARE OFTEN DIRECTED TOWARDS POSITION OF INTEREST.
Amy Cudy “How our mind changes our body, and how our body changes our minds”
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exactitudes Exactitudes are a series of photographs by Arie Versluis. Inspired by the striking dress codes of various social groups, they have systematically documented numerous identities over the last 19 years. By registering their subjects in an identical framework, with similar poses and a strictly observed dress code, Versluis and Uyttenbroek provide an almost scientific, anthropological record of people’s attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity. The apparent contradiction between individuality and uniformity is, however, taken to such extremes in their arresting objective-looking photographic viewpoint and stylistic analysis that the artistic aspect clearly dominates the purely documentary element.
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Inspiration The images on the left show inspirational pictures related to body postures.
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CLOSED POSTURE
OPEN POSTURE
iterating The image on the left shows a first iteration on posture forcing wearables. In the next iteration round I made the suit for closed posture and Laure Peeters made the open posture suit. The wearables force the wearer into either an open or closed posture in a rather extreme way. The goal was to see how it would influence the way the wearer would feel.
Associations color grey Lonliness Solid
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Depress Classic GREY Compromise Mysterious
Dramatic Isolation
High collar for powerfull feeling
Strap to force a straight posture
Open neck, exposes vulnerable parts, indicated confidence. Tightnig laceing for a more muscular feeling that boosts confidence
Tightnig laceing
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Confidence boosting and approachable colour
OPEN POSTURE By Laure Peeters
CLOSED POSTURE 22
By Tamara Hoogeweegen
Structure in hood forces wearer in downward position
Fixed sleeve forces arm to cover one self. Gloomy colours. Weight from the shoulders.
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_Demo-day: OPEN Change the color, it’s very feminine, notices posture enforcement Closed Forces you to look down, it’s quite uncomfortable.
_Laure: OPEN Accentuates female figure, Posture gives enforcing feeling Closed Shuts off, in own world, don’t care about what others think, uncomfortable, depressing.
Findings Both suits were experiences by a variety of people: _by Laure (co-worker) _by fellow students during midterm demo-day _by 4 participants of our experience test. (Scan image below with Layar app to see video)
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Experience test The test consisted of different rounds. (see Appendix for the questionaires) First the participant filled in a questionnaire without a suit, the participant put on one of the suits, the participant walked around the faculty building for 10 min the participant again filled in the questionare with questionnaire in different order the participant changed into other suit the participant walked around the faculty building for 10 min the participant again filled in the questionare with questionnaire in different order the participant was asked and told what the suits were meant to do.
experience test ingredients • 1 test, 3 versions, 4 printouts • 5 Big 5 personality questions • 4 emotion quotient scale questions • 4 participants • 1 male introvert • 1 male extrovert • 1 female introvert • 1 female extrovert • pen • open posture suit • closed posture suit • 30 min per participant • camera
midterm reflection In my PDP I said to made two iteration before the midterm. So far I have made one iteration, a visual recap of the first quartile and material explorations for the second quartile. The first quartile I wanted to have done more for my project, due to the imbalance of workload. A recap of what I did the first quartile is the following: What we did was make a design documentary, where we tried to take a look in peoples minds, by wondering why people behave, move,
stand in certain ways. This led to researching body language, specifically open en closed body postures. While looking into this we found that: “ Our minds change our body, but also the other way around. Our body changes our minds”. As a following step we wanted to look into what the effect was of garments forcing a certain position on the experience of people. Looking back at this quartile the process so far makes sense, good supporting steps were made. What could have happened differently is the pace in which the steps were taken. For example sewing the garments and finalizing them took me longer than expected, and also taking the step to test the experience of the garments on others could have happened quicker. I came to realize that these steps often take more preparation to be able to go through them quicker. Also I’ve got the feeling I want to be making more, working more hands on in this project. But at the same time I feel the pressure to work in a rational way, having a logical process. Before starting the project I thought the process would be to just start making, but then the design documentary defined the direction of working. I feel what I need to explain my steps too much. When it comes to testing my iterations with other I became aware that I feel like I’m laying a burden onto others. After actually doing it I realized that many times the participants don’t find it annoying, we actually got positive feedback which works encouraging. For the future my main learning points relate to finding balance between everything I want to do, and stick more to my own goals, plan time for preparing and just start doing.
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Main conclusions: The questionnaires showed most of the suits on the introvert participants. This corresponds to what the movie shows that the introvert feel more awkward in the suits. The extroverts were more aware of the influence of the suits. The fact that the suits expressed certain postures in quite extreme ways, caused it to be experienced in a very intense way which is hard to relate to everyday situations. The wearers were very aware of how it made them look. The open posture suit did make the participant stand with their shoulders back. Notable was that the male participants found the open suit too feminine, complained about the color and therefor were the most uncomfortable in this suit. The closed posture suit created some kind of comfort zone, by shutting themselves of. But at the same time it was experienced as unpleasant. The colors appeared to be very important. The visual part of the suits seemed to influence more than the way it made them feel physically. Their look was very important.
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translating open.close into textile Origami shaping Origami has characteristics of folding and therefore easily visualizes open and closing. Origami is an old japanese art of folding. It’s about transforming a flat paper sheet into a finished sculpture. The art of origami doesn’t incluede cutting of glueing, whole pieces are used. Origami often exist of patterns. Patterns are repetition of a motif, a motif can be repeated in a linear or a circular way. 
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The second phase of this project focussed on creating a beta-textile, by combining craft and electronics. This phase consited of translating open and close through origami foldings, learning about leather craft and experimenting with graphite.
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leather craft During the Dutch Design Week I got introduced to leather craft. The main finding was that only vegetable tanned leather can be molded when wet and will keep the given shape, unlike synthetically tanned leather. This characteristic was used to fold origami shapes into the leather.
Leather future The compant ModernMeddow is now developing a new kind of leather, without killin animals, but in a lab. As the production of leather is very much dependent on the consumption of meat, it’s good to look at alternatives.
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leather characteristics Leather is a natural material with great characteristics. Leather has build up a relation between the human skin and animal. This material has a unique character as each piece has the own characteristics of the skin. Leather is a strong, lasting, flexible and resistant material. The tanned animal skin is also quite fire-resistant, a good thermal insulator, resistant to mould and relativly elastic. (Materiology: 2013)
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The leather process _cutting _ carving _drenching _folding _holding
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Niels Datema’s Graphlight
Graphite During the graphite I saw the Graphlight of Niels Datema at the Graduation show of the Design Academy. This lamp is made out of graphite as the major characteristic of this material is its good electricity conductor. The lamp purely works on the characteristics of graphite by having one poitive and one negative side when both make contact, the light turns on. The conductive properties of graphite triggered me to look into more possible uses. Online I found a way to make conductive silicone.
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graphite characteristics Graphite is an alotrope of carbon, which means it has a different kind of crytalic structure. Graphite has some notable characteristics for it not being a metal, it’s a good conductor. It also has good lubricating properties. (Materiology: 2013)
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A variety of tryouts were done. It showed to conduct electricity. This material could be used for all kind of ends, but I thought of using it for jewelry with delicate lights. But using conductive silicone, mixed with graphite, on leather seemed contradictory, as leather and graphite are natural materials. Theror an exploration was done to see what other ways one could integrate electronic circuits in leather.
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A tryout was done with bioplastics, using: maizena, glycerine, water. and graphite. This wasn’t a success as the water evarporated and the shapes shrunk, this caused them to break.
Non successful trail to make conductive paint
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Tried 2 compo nent rubber, but ended up with liquid latex
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Graphite with Latex
Laser cut Leather
finalizing concept
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The last phase of the project merged the extensive explorations into a final beta-textile opENCLOSE, consisting of Leather, Led’s, Latex and Graphite. opENCLOSE was used to make two different wearables, which translate open and closed posture. More specifically the collar and the vest aim at making people aware of the world around them at the moment they take a closed posture when hiding behind their smart-phones. The collar targets the movement of the neck, when someone looks down at their phone, the collar would light up. The light makes the wearer and the people around notice the change in light, also the light will get attention. Because of the lights turning on the user would move it’s head up again to see the world outside the smart-phone. The same would happen with the vest when moving the shoulders in an either closed or open body posture.
future developmentS & critique
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For future developments of the beta-textile different points can be regarded: _applicability: for what more common wearables can this leather be used. _improvement: placement of the led’s on the vest would have to change, ideally be in the front for the wearer to be able to see it. _research: look into the properties of latex and silicone to compare. Latex deteriorates over time whereas silicone doesn’t. Also silicone has better glueing properties, if so it would be a way to unite leather parts. There is also a possibility to research use of conductive graphite with latex or silicone as a stretch sensor and its resistance. The relationship of body movements related to the shape of the wearables could also get research more in depth and could result in new designs. The way that the conductive latex is used in the final work doesn’t show the potential and the characteristics of the latex, this could be explored more and in a different way.
Reflection feedback. I heard many times that the strength of my project wasn’t in my final work but more in the explorations I did. This is something I agree with as much energy and time was put into the explorations, and that showed during the demo-day. What I could have done better or more was a better finalization of my final concept, place in in context and test it.
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This project was my first project which I finished on my own. This has made aware of how different it is to run a project on your own rather than in a group. You only rely on yourself and can’t delegate any tasks. This makes the project more personal but also forces to set priorities. This project specifically made me aware of the strengths of having certain (crafting) skills. By having these abilities one can design things with materials you know the properties of and its possibilities. Only after I learned how to craft leather I was able to integrate it into my project. The process during this project has also been a new way of working as it was been of a very explorative matter, looking much into materials and making many samples, rather than just making it in a way that is known. By exploring I got to an end result which was a result of the path I took, at the beginning I could not have though what it would be. It gives the final design a more personal touch and creates a stronger identity. In my future projects I will set my personal priorities beforehand to make sure I manage the project on my own, while not wanting to do too much. To keep on making personal designs I will try to learn more (crafting) skill to have more ability in creating in different ways. After having done this very hands-on project I noticed how much value iterations have because it communicates the best to outsiders. In future project I’ll start iterating as soon as possible and continue iterating along the way. Furthermore I’m quite satisfied with the result I achieved. I got good
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References - Crafting beta-textiles (2013). Project description, Wearables Senses, TU/e - Materiology (2013) - Hummels, C., & Frens, J. (2009, April). The reflective transformative design process. In CHI’09 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 2655-2658). ACM - Tomico, O. (2013). design documentaries, power point.
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I see myself as:
Appendix 1
Extraverted, enthusiastic Critical, quarrelsome. Dependable, self-disciplined. Anxious, easily upset. Open to new experiences, complex. Reserved, quiet. Sympathetic, warm. Disorganized, careless. Calm, emotionally stable.
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Conventional, uncreative.
Self Regard
Disagree strongly
Disagree
Don’t agree, don’t disagree
Agree
Agree strongly
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Disagree strongly
Disagree
Agree
Agree strongly
The ability to be aware of, understand, accept and respect oneself, e.g. Looking at both my good points and bad points, I feel good about myself. 1
Assertiveness
Don’t agree, don’t disagree
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The ability to express feelings, beliefs, and thoughts and defend one’s rights in a nondestructive manner, e.g. When I’m angry with others, I can tell them about it. 1
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Self-Actualization The ability to realize one’s potential capacities, e.g. I try to continue and develop those things that I enjoy. 1 2 3 4 5 Flexibility The ability to adjust one’s emotions, thoughts, and behavior to changing situations and conditions, e.g. It’s easy for me to adjust to new conditions. 1 2 3 4 5 Stress Tolerance The ability to withstand adverse events, stressful situations, and strong emotions without falling apart by actively and positively coping with stress, e.g. I know how to deal with upsetting problems 1 2 3 4 5
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