Computationally-Mediated Interactions with Traditional Textile Crafts

Crafting is a fundamental part of humanity; it gives us purpose and satisfaction, and it produces items that are beautiful and functional. At the same time, our relationship to traditional physical crafts has seen a massive upheaval due to technological advancements. The freedom and support to create textile crafts for pleasure and passion rather than necessity has never been more widespread. Interdisciplinary explorations of computer science and textile crafts have been increasing due to more people being intrinsically motivated to craft, more forms of supportive technology constantly being built, and more interconnected communities growing via the internet. The work in this dissertation begins to coalesce these user-focused and craft-based experiences by presenting crafting as a series of interconnected and nested processes covering the design, manufacture, and experience of textile craft products. Within these processes, I examine how crafters experience physical and digital forms of agency, both high and low, as well as ludic engagement or the lack thereof, as a means of evaluating user perception of technology related to textiles. As exemplar artifacts, I present my own, as well as collaborative, research on design support software, a manufacturing machine appropriated as a game console, and a pair of electronic textile-based fidget toys. This research illustrates how many varied design choices affected audiences' agency and ludic engagement by examining crafters' perceptions and skill levels, as well as the craft domain interpretations by accompanying software and hardware. The interdisciplinary work presented in this dissertation crosses the boundaries of creativity support software, computational creativity, game studies, human-computer interaction, and crafting communities outside the realm of academia. More importantly, this research begins to explicitly join predominantly feminine craft and masculine technological communities across all ages for the enrichment of all those involved

The Sweater Work / Shop

The Sweater Work / Shop is a project focusing on the utilization of DIY, crafts and making techniques in a design context. Setting out to develop a small-scale system, this Thesis explores the possibilities of working with textile waste in new and innovative ways through hands-on making while searching for an alternative to mass consumption. Theoretical research provides relevant and contemporary knowledge about the key areas of DIY, crafts and making, as well as their suggested benefits for the environment, society, individual wellbeing and the human-object relationship. Added to this, an extensive practical research provides deeper insights into these themes, related businesses and local projects, together with applied knowledge about the DIY, crafts and making process in a series of experiments with techniques and materials. An in-depth analysis summarizes the most significant problems and opportunities learned by application of the previously mentioned research methods, resulting in the formulation of a design brief for the practical prototype. The prototype itself is a small mobile kiosk to show, make and sell. It visualizes the process of un-knitting old garments, making recycled yarns and then knitting new products from these yarns. It serves both as a workstation and a small shop, therefore the title of this Thesis: The Sweater Work / Shop. This prototype is combined with an alternative pricing system, offering customized products for a lower price, and thereby creating value through engagement of the customer and the story of the making process instead of monetary investments. In the end, a real-life trial proved, that customized products offer a good balance of involvement; allowing even those who don’t want to craft, DIY or make to participate and benefit from some of the positive aspects of DIY, crafts and making

Embroidered Inflatables: Exploring Sample Making in Research through Design

This paper reflects on the experience of sample making to develop interactive materials. Sample making is a way to explore possibilities related to different materials techniques. In recent years design research has put an increasing emphasis on making as a mode of exploration, which in turn has made such exploration an increasingly popular and effective design research approach. However, sample making is a messy and complex process that is hard to document and communicate. To mitigate this, design researchers typically report their journeys from the perspective of their success, retroactively editing out or reducing the accounts of experiments that did not directly contribute to their goal. Although it is a useful way to of contextualizing a design process, it can contribute to a loss of richness and complexity of the work done along the way. Samples can be seen as instantiations of socio-techno systems of production, which means that they can be looked at from different perspectives and can potentially become the starting points of new design explorations. In recognition of this quality, we aim to investigate ways that samples can be appropriated in future journeys. To do so, we analyzed and reflected on the sample making process of the Embroidered Inflatables as a design case. The project resulted in 27 samples that explored distinct challenges related to designing actuators for soft wearables through the combination of silicone casting and embroidery techniques. To explore the potential of sample appropriation, we invited a fashion designer to a creative session that analyzed these samples from her personal perspective to identify new design directions. We detail the design process, reflect on our sample making experience and present strategies to support us in the process of reevaluating and appropriating samples

CRAFTING RESISTANCE: HANDMADE CULTURE AS A THIRD-WAVE FEMINIST RESPONSE TO CONSUMERISM

This thesis explores a resurgence of the handmade movement as a specifically third-wave feminist response to corporate consumer culture. Websites such as Etsy.com and Craftster. org have recently emerged and provide a means for crafters and purveyors of handmade goods to engage in trade, community building, and commerce with one another and consumers. I am fundamentally concerned with how the resurgence of the handmade movement relates to the greater discourse of third-wave feminism in the context of production and consumption, the rejection of corporate profiteering, and the reclaiming of one’s own labor through the handicrafts. Etsy.com and other craft websites have multiple ties to the third-wave feminist magazine, BUST, and this relationship is rigorously examined. My argument is built on a framework of feminist theory, consumption theory, and craft theory. Semiotic analyses of crafting texts and in-depth interviews with twenty-seven active crafters and Etsy members are employed in this research

Entangled Threads:Exploring the value and significance of bringing a craft ethos to debates around the IoT/connected things.

Alongside the benefits of a world in which more and more things are internet connected (i.e., the IoT), scaffolded by increasingly powerful AI systems, there is a growing recognition of a flipside to this vision of the future. Issues associated with privacy, transparency, legibility and trust have been widely recognized – which the Mozilla Foundation has encapsulated in their Internet Health Reports [13]. This workshop will explore these tensions and concerns through the lens of craft, both as a practice and a conceptual ethos. We will use embroidery as a craft-oriented ‘thinking through making’ activity as the foundation for discussions of our craft characteristics of which consist of; bespokeness, localism, embodiment, provenance, authenticity, and care. Participants will gain a rich understanding of debates around IoT while being engaged in a ‘thinking through doing’ embodied approach to gaining new insights and leave with their own hand embroidered badge.<br/

Trifles of value : Craft as communication in Victorian literature

This thesis argues that craft functions in the nineteenth century as a form of communication that expresses female identity in Elizabeth Gaskell\u27s Cranford and Margaret Oliphant\u27s Miss Marjoribanks. By looking at the novels through the lens of Talia Schaffer\u27s craft paradigm in connection with Thing theory, it is possible to make connections between the role of craft and identity, which in turn raises questions about craft and female agency. These connections to female agency illuminate tensions between craft and the economy, gender disparity in the arts, and the limitations of class. In order to explore these notions it is integral to investigate the craft movements that surround them (such as domestic handicrafts, the Design Reform movement, and the Arts and Crafts movement) because each brings with it a set of aesthetic standards that inform craft culture. This inquiry ultimately begs the question: has anything changed in the twenty first century

CRAFTING RESISTANCE: HANDMADE CULTURE AS A THIRD-WAVE FEMINIST RESPONSE TO CONSUMERISM

This thesis explores a resurgence of the handmade movement as a specifically third-wave feminist response to corporate consumer culture. Websites such as Etsy.com and Craftster.org have recently emerged and provide a means for crafters and purveyors of handmade goods to engage in trade, community building, and commerce with one another and consumers. I am fundamentally concerned with how the resurgence of the handmade movement relates to the greater discourse of third-wave feminism in the context of production and consumption, the rejection of corporate profiteering, and the reclaiming of one’s own labor through the handicrafts. Etsy.com and other craft websites have multiple ties to the third-wave feminist magazine, BUST, and this relationship is rigorously examined. My argument is built on a framework of feminist theory, consumption theory, and craft theory. Semiotic analyses of crafting texts and in-depth interviews with twenty-seven active crafters and Etsy members are employed in this research

Inflatable actuators based on machine embroidery

The growing interest in wearable technologies has prompted the development of new techniques for integrating electronics into garments, and more specifically to overcome the challenges interfacing hard and soft components. In comparison to sensors and leads, the textile-based or integrated solutions for actuation remain underexplored. Approaching materials as extensions of actuators, we investigate machine embroidery as means to integrate silicone-based inflatables into garments. Following a research through design methodology, we created inflatables whose design and behavior are determined by machine embroidered substrates. Our iterative process resulted in 24 samples, divided in five series, exploring distinct challenges: 1) sewing attributes to create properties of inflatables; 2) fit & support; 3) improving integration & resolution of complex shapes; 4) enlarging area of actuation; and 5) textile integration. We discuss the impact of different parameters to the fabrication and the interaction possibilities of soft actuators. We show how machine embroidery allows shifting the complexity of the designs away from the casting process, simplifying fabrication, while enabling the creation of a wide range of shapes and behaviors through layering of textile structures. Our work extends the possibilities of integrating different technologies into garments through a single manufacturing process. We contribute with the detailed description of our design process and reflections on designing inflatables by means of machine embroidery