Digital Textiles Research Seminar

All students and staff across the University are invited to attend the first TFRC Research Seminar, organised by the Future Digital Textiles platform, led by Sue Jenkyn-Jones at LCF.

The first of two seminars from this platform will cover smart materials, textiles and clothing augmented with electronics, photo-voltaics, electro-luminecense, and printed or structural fabric technologies for sensory and affective responses. Speakers include Di Mainstone, Dr. Petar Goulev, Douglas Atkinson and Fong Wong.

This event will be of particular interest if you are thinking of entering some work for the VF/TFRC competition, under the 'Networked Lives' theme.

Thursday 3rd March, LCF, Room 311, John Princes Street, 2 - 5pm. To attend please email tfrg@tfrg.org.uk.

The second Digital Textiles Seminar will cover digital weave and print, with speakers and a date yet to be confirmed.

Eco textiles show in Tilburg

Fashion made from recycled polyester? A chair made from resin and flax fibres? A machine powered by solar energy that produces textile objects?

The work of several TFRC members is currently on show in reTHINK!: Eco Textiles at the Audax Textile Museum in Tilburg, Holland. The show is an overview of the lifecycle of textile production from a sustainability point of view and includes the work of independent designers as well as commercial textile companies from the Netherlands.

The work on show originates from the three-year upcycling textiles research project led by Becky Earley at TED/CCW, where a group of textile designers were asked to explore recycling through four interconnected themes - systems and services design; short life/long life; ethical production and new technologies.

On show at Tilburg is one of Becky Earley's upcycled polyester TOP 100 shirts, (below)from her Template Collection, where she created new transfer prints for old polysetr shirts through hand -drawn and painted marks.

Mel Bowles is showing her Wallpaper Dress,(below) a project exploring themes of customisation, co-design and emotional durable design, where a found pattern is transformed into a treasured and unique garment using local resources, skills and bespoke digital printing.

Clara Vuletich is showing her Love & Thrift coat (below) a garment that addresses aspects of both material and emotional durabulity.

Kate Goldsworthy (CSM) is showing a new garment (below) made using laser technology to re-invigorate polyester. Kate is also running a one day workshop on using laser technology for upcycling at the Museum, on January 28th.

There is a good review of the show in Dutch site Design.nl.

Digital Craft in Textiles

Craft processes and techniques have become a dominant theme and pre-occupation within design in the last few years and some of the most exciting and innovative work is coming from designers and makers who are combining the hand-made with the latest digital technologies.

Several TFRC members are exploring digital processes in their textile work, and have been included in a recent exhibition called Labcraft: Digital Adventures in Contemporary Craft, curated by Max Fraser and organised by the Crafts Council, which maps this new territory.

Melanie Bowles (CCW), Philippa Brock (CSM) and Jo Pierce( CSM) were part of the show that launched at TENT London last September, and that is now touring throughout the UK.

Philippa Brock, is a weaver who has been exploring the potential for 'on loom' finishing techniques that push the boundaries of what is possible with CAD/CAM woven jacquard textiles.

Initial prototyping is developed on hand looms and then the designs are sent through an industrial jacquard power loom, often relying on serendipity to advance new techniques. Brock creates 3D textiles which 'self fold' as they come off the loom, which require minimal finishing, thus reducing the chemical impacts of one of the most damaging processes in textile production.

The process is also reliant on both old and new yarn developments and exploring unusual combinations of woven structure interactions.

Melanie Bowles is a digital textile designer whose work explores the parellels between traditional textile techniques and digital print processes. Digital Shibori involves the translation of the traditional folding and dyeing techniques of shibori, reinterpreted onto digitally printed textiles.

Jo Pierce's work explores the differences between the 'unpolished' aesthetic of the hand and the 'high finished' feel of digital technology. Lost in Digital was created from a digital collage of different images and drawings, that were digitally printed onto fabric and then hand-embellished.

Max Fraser has written an essay to accompany the exhibition available here, that cites TFRC as one of the most innovative research centres in the field. "....my search has led me to research departments where many of the most experimental digital developments take place....including Textile Futures Research Centre at University of the Arts London".

Top image: Philippa Brock

Middle image: Melanie Bowles

Bottom image: Jo Pierce