The modernist paradigm 'form follows function'
was coined in the context of design practices with very strong traditions
and a profound understanding of what constitutes 'form'. Today, both
materials and use must be fundamentally reconsidered in the development
of a deep understanding of the computational object.
If we start to approach 'form' with the notion of computational technology
as a material, its primary form elements all have to do with time and
the temporal structures that are created as programs are being executed.
Thus, this material not only makes it possible for designers to work
with temporal form, it requires us to do so. These temporal structures,
however, need to be given some kind of spatial manifestation.
We have been examining spatial and temporal form in order to build a
deeper understanding of material, expressions, and appearance of computational
objects in use. In this way, our approach circles around the notion
of form, exploring deeply the emergent expressions and interactions
which have expanded and raised new challenges for the design object.
To illustrate, we have been working with several design examples.
Draft
Draft is a vehicle for exploring an expanded language of expressive
properties for textile artefacts, encorporating computation in order
to display information through visual, tangible, and other multi-modal
means. Rather than just characteristics of speed, legibility, and exactitude
appropriate for traditional computer displays, we focus on more subtle
forms of visual display, as well as tangible and physical interactivity.
In this project, textiles are explored not just as a 2-dimensional surface,
but spatially and in conjunction with ordinary objects, furniture, and
everday use situations.
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Time cloth
time traces as a textile-pattern as social interactions leave traces
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Structure display
dynamic movement with airflow
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Textile disobedience
In these examples, we start from the aesthetic and techniques in the
construction of traditional materials to explore how such properties
could be put to use in non-traditional ways. This project acts as a
focussed study of pattern, texture, and construction of materials as
properties tied to use situations. The outcome will be a series of fast
prototypes and material artefacts, which act as inspiration for developing
dynamic properties for future application development. Technique and
material: Screen print on fabric, mixed materials: glue, mosaic.
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Falling cloth
Aesthetic patterns are often made symmetrically on tablecloths, and
the cloth is placed in a symmetrical way onto the table. But this "falling
cloth" is made to fall of the table if the pattern is placed symmetric
onto the table.
Structure
Structure is a cloth made to investigate how a constructed pattern could
make a non-useful tablecloth and how it could look like. The structure
is extreme – if you try to place a glass on top of the cloth it
would fall. Technique and material: Hand painted fabric with swellpaint.
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Why do we not use tablecloths so often today?
Maybe because that we do not want to have to launder them or afraid
of staining our beautiful old linen. But if the fabric would hide or
even build the pattern out of stains, what would it look like? Technique
and material: digital-print on fabric
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Un pattern-pattern cloth
This is a mono-coloured tablecloth without a pattern – the pattern
is made through use, when, arms and hands are placed on the table or
hot cups are put on the surface. The next step is to make an pattern/decoration
with changing properties – this property could be used to make
a pattern for playing games during the coffee-break at work. Technique
and material: thermocromical screenprint.
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Project team
Ramia Mazé, Maria Redström, Johan Redström, Linda
Worbin