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 [...]

This mitten lights up when its wearer shakes hands with someone. It has two exposed soft contacts around the thumb and across the palm which, when bridged by bare skin, turn on the LED embedded on the flower. The mitten itself was created by fashion designer Isabel Tomás, and we then sewed a simple touch [...]

Diana Eng’s beautiful Fairytale Fashion Show @ Eyebeam. Check out fairytalefashion.org for more info.

Conductive yarn is a great material to experiment with, but it is difficult to buy in small quantities. Hannah Perner-Wilson from ‘How to get what you want‘ has negotiated with the manufacturer Schoeller to place a minimum order of 30 kilograms, and is looking for others who may want to make a collective purchase. She’s [...]

This Sunday altlab is holding its first Soft Circuits Open Lab at the School of Fine Arts in Lisbon (FBAUL - Faculdade de Belas Artes de Lisboa). There is no predefined structure for the event. We will meet for the course of one day with the purposes of sharing knowledge, experimenting freely, advancing on-going projects, [...]

I first heard about the Freedom in Interactive Wearable Art (FiiWA) from Tracy Gromek and Marcus Pingel at FashionCamp NYC 2009, where they discussed the challenges involved in creating safe, sturdy and adequate sporting equipment for visually impaired persons. Here’s a description of their creative and constructive project: FiiWA (Freedom in Interactive Wearable Art) is a [...]