The samples explore the design possibilities of solar-responsive yarns (light-emitting, color-changing, and shape-changing yarns) in textile design using knitting and weaving constructions. The textiles developed in the project Rhythms of Sunlight connect to the rhythms of nature; they form a visual representation relating acts of use to different climate conditions by being sensitive to continuous changes of light. In this process, natural phenomena are included as co-designers, allowing each piece to exhibit multiple expressions and gently completing the process the designer has opened. Beyond the textile design, the collection of artifacts generates new questions and speculates different ways of daily living with light-responsive textiles.

Moving beyond the conventional understanding of solar energy as a power source, this presentation will discuss the constituents of solar energies and their capacity to act as an agential material, i.e. one that interacts, mediates, and facilitates change in smart textile designs. The concept of agential materiality suggests that phenomena such as solar energies are not passive forces but are active participants in the co-constitution of natural and designed environments. Solar energies comprise sunlight and its constituents: visible light (through which we experience illumination and colour), ultraviolet (UV) wavelengths, and infrared wavelengths. These each contain inherent variabilities in their qualities, expressions, intensities and temporal patterns that can directly influence textile material properties and the interactive and responsive aspects of smart textile design. This perspective draws from a ‘more-than-human design’ theoretical framework, which argues for the recognition of non-human actors in the design process. Through this lens, solar energies inform the properties, behaviours, and expressions of textile design materials and challenge conventional hierarchies between the animate and the inanimate.

Inspired by nature's capacity for change, the project proposes an alternative approach to designing smart materials with shape-changing properties powered by green energy. Natural phenomena, e.g., light, are explored to trigger changes in textiles rather than using electrical circuits and energy, which are often used in smart textile design. The project relates material science to textile design through an experimental research methodology to generate responsive materiality, bridging developments in material science, textile craftsmanship, artistic research, and design.

Nowadays, ethics and care for the environment have shifted paradigms in smart textile design towards responsible energy use and preservation of natural resources. In this research, we aim to relate material science and engineering to textile and interaction design in discovering a vibrant responsive materiality triggered by ultraviolet (UV) energy. The research addresses a bottom-up approach entangling scientific development in material science, textile craftsmanship, and design to the understanding of human use and the capacities for change of this natural phenomena. Compared to a conventional textile design process where material and form composition connect in a final expression, this research positions designers and scientists as enablers of material relations. The artefacts, therefore, exhibit multiple states and forms, transforming dynamically through use and sensitivity to natural phenomena. The selected textile artefacts are seen as relational; they open for different conversations and materialize entanglements of materials, techniques, methods, and research methodologies that relate experimental research to human-centered and more-than-human approaches.

In the presented collection of artefacts, textiles are seen as active elements in their environments – being able to react to environmental stimuli by changing their shape, colour, or other qualities. Drawing parallelism to biological materials, some of these changes are two-directional and thus can lead to reversible changes, whereas some are linear and irreversible, such as ageing. As examples of two-directional changes, textile designs based on UV reactive properties: colour changing, light emitting, and self-cleaning, as well as textile constructions based on newly developed yarns capable of reversible shape changes upon exposure to heat are exhibited. On the other hand, the colour changes of natural dyes dictated by the ambient environment and the heat-response of new PLA yarns bring about elements of irreversible change. When two-directional and linear changes coexist, the appearance (and thus aesthetics) of the artefacts is constantly altering. The timescales contained in these textile transformations vary significantly creating an interesting interplay of diverse and sometimes intersecting qualities. These concepts are approached from different viewpoints – from developing new advanced materials for making yarns, exploring different textile crafting methods for producing diverse textile structures, and to engaging with aesthetic sustainability. 

This exhibition shows work in progress in the Beyond e-textiles project which bases on interdisciplinary research work involving contributions from physics, crafting, materials engineering, and textile design. Partners are Aalto University, University of Turku, University of Borås, VIA University College, and Iceland University of the Arts. Employing methodologies from these various disciplines and conducting research at different levels of hierarchy of textile construction can help us to reimagine, materialise and finally realise new textile concepts and their changing aesthetics

Sustainable design thinking challenges perspectives on approaches to material development that are considerate of resources from the natural environment. This involves limiting energy consumption and re-purposing materials’ use, qualities, and functions for an extended life span. Using a practice-based research methodology, this research proposes an alternative framework for sustainable textiles with a strong emphasis on designing a material’s expressive qualities related to its extended use values: co-creation and wear. The experimental practice looks at the interplay between a material’s inherent properties and its craftmanship, as well as aesthetic and expressive values which could extend the duration of use. The research takes a bottom-up approach to sustainable design thinking and exemplifies the design of diverse material strategies through a curated library of responsive textile expressions. The responsive textile samples developed in this research illustrate rich ways of responding and adapting to user actions and their environmental surroundings. The textiles’ extended multimodal attributes suggest an alternative framework to design for prolonged lifespan, and exemplify materials that enhance daily life by conserving energy and allowing for customization and location-specific applications. 

Printable smart materials offer textile designers a range of changeable colours, with the potential to redefine the expressive properties of static textiles. However, this comes with the challenge of understanding how the printing process may need to be adapted for these novel materials. This research explores and exemplifies the properties and potential of electroluminescent inks as printable smart colours for textiles, in order to facilitate an understanding of designing complex surface patterns with electroluminescent inks. Three conventional textile print methods – colour mixing, halftone rasterization, and overlapping – have been investigated through experimental design research to expand the design potential of electroluminescent inks. The result presents a set of methods to create various color mixtures and design complex patterns. It offers recipes for print formulation and documents the outcomes, offering a new design resource for textile surface pattern designers to promote creativity in design, and provides fundamental knowledge for the creation of patterns on textiles using electroluminescent inks.

To regard the electromagnetic domain of conductive textiles is to unlock a realm of expressive possibilities. The underexplored area of the electromagnetic domain in con­ductive textiles implies that numerous computational and electronic textiles created thus far possess untapped capabilities. These textiles, composed of metals and metal alloys, transcend our perception by constantly interacting with electromagnetic waves, fields, and signals. Serving as energetic materials, they extend a textile’s design qual­ities beyond its visible and tangible elements, ushering designers into an intangible, non-visual, extrasensory realm.

Through experimental design research, the research program aims to explore the ex­pressive possibilities of the electromagnetic domain of textiles. To achieve this, there is an initial focus on material development to understand the means through which these phenomena can be expressed. Subsequently, the design of methods and tools for sens­ing and perceiving the phenomena are explored. This foundational knowledge is crucial in uncovering the aesthetic potentials of electromagnetic systems involving sensing circuits and textile artefacts. Additionally, design variables that extend the expressive possibilities of textiles are proposed including textile radiance, electromagnetic texture, electromagnetic fusion, electromagnetic coupling, diffusion, and field shape. Further­more, the results suggest a framing for how electromagnetic textiles function through acts of sensing, acting, and revealing. 

Through examples, exhibitions, and publications, an argument is made for positioning electromagnetic textiles as a distinctive category of smart textiles, unveiling the often overlooked design potential residing within electromagnetic phenomena. The choice of how to sense and reveal electromagnetic phenomena through textiles presents aesthetic implications for multisensory textiles, requiring designers to transcend the realms of visibility and tactility, thereby challenging the predominant senses employed in conventional textile design. This presents as an expanded design space that allows for unconventional textile expressions. This forms the basis for radiant textiles: a type of smart textile that regards a textile’s electromagnetic qualities and properties, and which opens to multisensorial textile expressions.

Radiant textiles are smart textiles regarded for their electromagnetic properties. The work is a series of 3D-printed objects that make visible the otherwise imperceptible magnetic fields of woven textile structures. These fields are captured through a “magnetic textile scanning” method that employs magnetometer readings. The data is used in 3D design software to create visualizations for 3D printing.