openMaterials

Last March I had the opportunity to teach an openMaterials workshop at the very special École Supérieure d’Art d’Aix-en-Provence (France). It was part of a larger event in which the school invited researchers and artists from several fields to lead a one week class for 2nd year art students. The goal was to show them different technologies and materials, which they’d later use on an art project. Besides my smart materials class, there was also an astrobiology workshop by Andy Gracie and a video class by Douglas Stanley.

I was so impressed with the work done by these young students that I can’t resist sharing some photos and descriptions of their projects. These were kindly sent by the very talented artist and teacher France Cadet, who guided the students during the making of their final projects.

Barbed Wire by Morgane Guiard
Morgane wanted to represent barbed wire on her art piece. At first she tried to work with fiber optics: the images on the screen were supposed to drive the might to the fiber optics and make the data travel trough. This structure turned out to be really nice and poetic but also very fragile. She eventually broke it and decided to go with red EL wire. This time she put the display behind the barbed wire and made the EL blink according to the speed of the increasing number of victims shown on the screen (the number of victims barbed wire made during 3 different wars).

Interactive Tapestry by Sarah Martinis and Caroline Geneste
Sarah and Caroline made an interactive tapestry (a bit like “toile de Jouy” with some bone sprinted on it). The patterns were fitted with copper electrodes connected to several capacitive sensors. They were playing 8 different yelling sounds and used a sport electronic hacked device with a few electrodes around the wrist.

EL Dress by Amélie Djellel
Amelie used EL wire and a few handmade conductive fabric sensors to create a touch sensitive seethru dress. Each sensor triggered different strands of EL wire shaped inside the dress and representing forms between the meridians, the veins and the organs. The brightness of the EL changed according to the pressure applied on the sensors.

Color Changing Suit & Dance Performance by Lou Feraud
Lou created a suit sprinkled with UV active (color changing) beads and ink. She then wore it during a dance performance, in which she held some UV LEDs at the tips of each finger on one hand, and bright LEDs on the other hand.

Color Changing Stickers by Mélanie Cartier
Mélanie also used UV active ink to create stickers with the radioactive logo to evoke the memory of the radioactive accident and its invisible repercussions.

Animal by Huna Ruel
Huna used conductive fabric sensors to create a little animal that moves when touched (contracting its head and tail). She then covered it with latex. Unfortunately, once dry the latex shrank a bit and caused the sensors to be on at all times.

During the workshop, Amélie and I made some cards with different types of handmade sensors (using paper, conductive fabric, and velostat) to be kept at the school as a reference. The beautiful drawings and neat handwriting are hers :)

Thank you to all the fun and talented students and their awesome teachers France Cadet, Jean Pierre Mandon and Laurent Costes for a really great week!

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