___animated. textiles

workshop at the swedish school of textiles. boras. sweden / sept. 17-21 2012

Manuel Kretzer

Ivana Damjanovic

materiability research network. ita. caad. eth zürich

Within this five-day workshop we explored the potential combination of soft electroactive polymers (EAP), also known as dielectric elastomers (DE), with lightweight textile systems to create animated surfaces or structures. 

The workshop participants worked in groups of four people. After a generous introduction into the techniques of making EAP, each group produced their own membranes based on simple mutations of a previously defined working component. The necessary support frames were cut using a laser cutter. While each component can be different, the ones exhibiting the most promising behavior were picked to become attached to textiles and fabrics in order to form animated ecologies of moving textile assemblies. Throughout the workshop each group was constantly supervised and tutored and present their final design to the other groups on the last day of the course. Each group  built a physical prototype but also thought about possible applications and scenarios, to which this experimental approach could be further developed or lead to in the future.