Lars Hallnäs, Linda Melin and Johan Redström
PLAY Research Studio, Interactive Institute

Abstract
As we face an increasingly heterogeneous collection of computational devices, there is a need to develop a general approach to what it is that we design as we create computational things. One such basic approach is to consider computational technology to be a design material. In the present paper, we describe how a traditional material - textiles - can be used to investigate aspects of the expressiveness and aesthetics of computational technology as design material. As an example of this approach, we use an experimental design project made for an art museum. We describe a series of conceptual sketches of how textile artefacts can be used to re-interpret elementary acts of information technology use and the experiences from working with the final installation of one of them. Finally, we discuss properties of textiles and computational technology, such as expressions related to vagueness, unpredictability and slowness.

Keywords
Aesthetics, textiles, computational things, design methods.

Presented at NordiCHI 2002, Aarhus October 19-23.

© 2002

PLAY