FFF Seminars: Alternative Presents for Dynamic Fabric

On our next Fancy Formal Friday seminar organised by the IxD team, we will be welcoming Angella Mackey who will talk about "Alternative Presents for Dynamic Fabric".

Abstract

Dynamic, colour-changing textiles have been widely explored in wearables and smart textiles discourse over the last two decades. Commonly produced using LEDs or thermochromic inks, these fabrics allude to a future textile that could act like a computer screen while still maintaining the qualities of something soft and wearable. There have been significant prototypical contributions to this area, but very little is known about how such a fabric might be experienced in everyday life. Is this something desirable? What does it mean to wear a screen? In this doctoral research, I use myself as an instrument to examine the lived experience of wearing dynamic colour-changing fabrics in daily life, and also explore how they might change design processes in the context of fashion. Through two case studies over three years, I wear and work with a dynamic fabric that can be technically described as a live, wearable greenscreen, as way to mimic qualities of a future form. Engaging it in a research through design approach, I blended strategies from speculative design and autobiographical design in order to capture and understand these experiences , offering several insights into the implications of dynamic fabric on everyday dress and design. Moreover, I reflect on how my understanding of the concept of dynamic fabric changed over time using an approach called alternative presents.