* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
a guided meditation
in noticing the electrical conductivity of materials
including our bodies
a practice in
unraveling our material knots
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

An ongoing collaboration with Fereshteh Toosi.

We first met in June 2019, during a week-long workshop titled Blurring Boundaries that Hannah taught at Shakerag. We had a chance to experience each other’s practices and discovered that we are both trying to understand how humanity has come to perceive itself as separate from nature, to trace the effects of this ideology on the current environmental crisis, and to explore possible undoings of this distinction, through our artistic and technological practices.

We next met in November 2019 for a 1-week residency titled —Tasting the Change— in the English countryside. Here we shared thoughts on how conversation on the climate crisis has turned to the possibility that we have run out of time. Movements like Extinction Rebellion are calling for us to consider human extinction as a real possibility. In the face of this possible future, some are seeking new ways to survive while many people around the world have already been suffering displacement and health effects of material extraction for a long time. It is the residents of wealthier countries who are only now beginning to feel threatened by humans’ impact on the earth.

We’ve tried to distill our thoughts into three leading questions:
* How to make our way towards a new vantage point of human-nature-culture entanglement?
* How do render ourselves careful instead of helpless?
* How to deal with our positions of privilege in such an undertaking?

Unraveling our Material Knots is our first step in tracing our human-nature-culture division. What >means< make ourselves feel more part of the material world, and not separate from it?
We want to act upon this feeling.

//
other working titles:
Invisible Circuits
Common Ground
Human-Nature Interactions (HNI)
//

Photos >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157711843743071
Tasting the Change: residency >> https://artdotearth.org/hothouse-coolhouse-residency/

Course website >> https://gtt.ufg.at/fff2019/
Course summary >> https://gtt.ufg.at/projekt-faser-faden-fiction/

Photos >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710869132172

The pair of leggings are made conductive via a technique of polypyrrole polymerization. Using tie-dye technique to create areas of non-conductivity. This work was done in collaboration with Cedric and Paul at the University of Saarbrücken in August 2019. And would not have been possible without the recipe from Anna.

I made these leggings for the purpose of demonstrating the in-situ tie-die style polymerization of pyrrol. In their most basic setup, the leggings have force sensitive resistance areas at the knees. this information is sent over wifi to a computer running an application that translates knee bend into forward and backward arrow key presses.

Making-of

Making-of:

These functional leggings are actually made up of 4 layers:

+ under-leggings with sensor circuit traces and snap connections to skirt

+ over-leggings with sensor areas

+ skirt with snap connections from skirt to i/o board and pouch for battery

+ i/o board with snap connections to sensor circuit traces via skirt

KNEE BEND TEST

streight knee/relaxed sensor: 442 K Ohm

bent knee/strained sensor: 310 K Ohm

The decision to polymerzie leggings came for these reasons:

– on the size-scale of fabrics we were polymerizing, leggins represent a medium-to-large piece of fabric which provided us with an interesting challenge/test of scaling up our process.

– leggings are an iconic item of clothing associated with the tie-dye technique and hippie fashion, allowing us to make a visual reference to one of the (hi)stories behind what we are doing.

– for some time i’ve been thinking I need to make myself a piece of use(less) wearable technology to wear when i present my work to help me demonstrate my idea of “make your tech and wear it too” – and a pair of leggings that allow me to control my presentation by bending my knees seemed perfect.

The decisions I made of how to apply the tie resist technique to create separated polymerized regions on different parts of the leggings were made amid a myriad of influences (possibilities, requirements, constraints) that I have tried to organize into the following categories of influence:

– electrical functionality: capturing bend of the knees, touch to the thighs, stretch of the crotch

– aesthetics: appealing distribution of black and white, large and small surface areas, quality of lines. elegance of functional solution as all-in-one, robustness

– use of resources, elegance/efficiency of process: to save poly material by tying off any regions that would not be needed for sensing and combining this decision with the aesthetic decisions.

– opportunities (not constraints) of the technique: binding always has to take place around the material, lending itself to create lines and circular shapes.

From many possibilities to actual implementation
After a late-night attempt at trying to solve the entire circuitry within the polymerized leggings – accounting for traces from sensor regions to a central point where a connector could be mounted and integrating voltage dividing resistors as well – I decided to only solve for the sensing regions (squeeze, pressure, stretch) in the tie-poly leggings and to solve the traces and resistors separately. Thus the Tie-Poly Leggings are only the outer-layer of a two-legging layering system. The under-leggings [] solve for the conductive traces that lead to the sensor regions, and a break-out pouch [] connects these to the xOSC wireless i/o module or a wired TeensyLC. Metal snap connectors make for a removeable connection between the under-leggings and the pouch.

Techniques:
In-Situ Polymerization >> http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7826
Tie-Poly Resist Technique >> http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7825

4 LAYERS:

Polymerized Over-Leggings
These leggings were tie-polymerized in order to achieve both visually and electrically seperated areas of black polymerization and conductivity.
the original intention was the sense bending of the knees via stretch of a polymerized circle on knit4 fabric over the front of knee. initial tests showed this fabric to work well for the purpose, but in the final version the fact that the marble object inside the knee region used to achieve the polymerized circle interfered with the thorough polymerization of the fabric, rendering it sufficiently useless for this purpose, while in comparison the back region of the knee was well polymerized and could be used to sense bend of the knee via compression of the fabric behind the knee.

made of:
1- bamboo & elastan (Karstadt)
2- viscose & elastan (Karstadt)

materials were selected because:

– in the initial tests they showed to polymerize well (meaning the black polypyrrol appeared to adhere to the fibers since very little black rubbed off after only a single rinse (1min under cold running water with light mechanical rubbing of the material against itself).

– the resistance range (after 1hour polymerization) was ca. < 500K Ohm / sq. (to be bellow range of body/skin resistance).

– 1’s compression sensing characteristics yielded a range of 100 K Ohm (light press) – 20 K Ohm (hard press) with 5mm wide electrode strips spaced 2mm apart running parallel on same side of the material (see FIG).

– 2’s stretch sensing characteristics yielded a range of 100 K Ohm (relaxed state) – 20 K Ohm (stretched) when measured between 2cm long electrodes spaced 2cm apart (see FIG).

OVER LEGGINGS (front and back)

Electrode Under-Leggings
4 electrodes sewn as strips of stretch conductive fabric travel from along the front waistband in pairs to the backs of the knees. the spacing between the paired electrodes is smallest in two areas that i wanted to sense compression of the fabric from bend at the knee and hip. unfortunately, in my first tie-dye attempt i forgot to to leave the hip region free for polymerization and this the sensor function in this region is not working. But next time!

made of:
– cotton and elastan (pink) – selected for it’s 2-way stretch, thinness (not to produce extra bulk) and comfort (soft to touch and natural fiber blend).
– Shieldex® Technik-tex P130, silverized lycra, 78% Polyamide + 22% Elastomer, 99% pure Silver – selected for it’s 2-way stretch and high conductivity (< 2 Ohms/square).

UNDER LEGGINGS (front and back):

Mini-Circuit Skirt
sewn from a woven black cotton fabric. short so that the leggings remain as visible as possible. with pockets to contain the 5V power-bank and additional presentation props. and 4 pairs of metal snap connectors. Each pair of snaps is electrically connected with a short strip of Technik-tex P130, and one snap connects to the electrode terminals on the under-leggings, the other connects to a removable i/o board broken out into a soft circuit made by sewing copper thread (Karl-Grimm) into leather to make connections between an xOSC mounted via low-profile headers on a protoboard [see FIG].

SKIRT:

i/o Wireless Board
an xOSC mounted via low-profile headers on a protoboard. The xOSC streams the readings from the analog input pins connected to the two knee sensors via OSC to a nearby computer. The computer runs a Processing sketch that uses simple threshold detection to determine knee bend when the sensor reading passes the threshold (this can be solved much more reliably using absolute change as the sensor values drift over time!). The Robot library is used to trigger the RIGHT and LEFT_ARROW key presses so that the leggings control the the slides in a slide-show.

WIRELESS i/o (x-OSC, front and back):

connecting:

WIRED option

connecting:

CONNECTIONS BETWEEN UNDER- and OVER LEGGINS and SKIRT:

DOCUMENTATION:
Counter Chemists >> https://counterchemists.github.io/

PolySense: Augmenting Materials with Electrical Functionality (using In-Situ Polymerization).
>> https://counterchemists.github.io/files/PolySense.pdf

CCC Camp video
>> https://media.ccc.de/v/Camp2019-10375-make_your_tech_and_wear_it_too

Micro – Polymerization >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710884689521

Polymerization >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710354823622

Tie-Poly Leggings >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710685191162

Tie-Poly Datagloves >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710838047002/with/48731152298/

Links

Publication >> https://counterchemists.github.io/files/PolySense.pdf

Counter Chemists website >> https://counterchemists.github.io/

EXAMPLES
Tie-Poly Leggings: Hippie slide-control
>> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7823

MATERIALS & TECHNIQUES
speculating about piezoresistance >> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7832
In-Situ Polymerization >> http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7826
Etching >> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7841
Resist Techniques >> http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7825

PHOTOS
polymerization (all) >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710354823622
leggings >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710685191162
datagloves >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710838047002

VIDEOS
>> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxMxh4ORY0EXyDBY6Q_3t1LnaMRwgfYNi

>> https://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=7823
>> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157710685191162

CREDITS: The Counter Chemists, Ana C Baptista, Cedric @ datapaulette, Hannah Perner-Wilson, Paul Strohmeier

Looking back, four things stand out to me as insights that I’d never before seen this clearly:
::: I’m following most of the time
::: Materials contain the stories we use them to tell – and we think the stories are ours!
::: I’m not as skilled as I thought at smoothly transitioning between the abstract and the tangible
::: My idea of “getting lost with the materials” is not about engaging in an extreme material-lead adventure as much as it is departing from social frameworks of value
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :

that the more dense the material the more power it took to heat and the longer it took to cool down again. +//Every time I make a decision, I’m revealing underlying motivations, intuitions, expectations that can be uncovered if I only take the time to reflect. —————- Reduced my selection back to 3-4 items to help myself focus on some concrete experiments.
++//There is a gap between thinking-about-making and making. It requires energy to make the jump. Energy in the form of courage, hope, stamina. //How to make the jump when the energy is not there? >>>>>>>>>>>>> Going through familiar motions with the most obvious of opportunities. Mixing the pigment with acrylic paint, textile paint…… painting it on fabrics, papers, seashells, pine needles, transistors…. >>>>>>>>>>>>> Hooking up the ends of a 20cm piece of steel thread to a 9V battery and using it to heat the what I had prepared. Swiping it across my samples and observing them change colour. +++//By simply doing something with the materials I had set myself up for discovering something interesting [origin of word interesting: from inter- ‘between’ + esse ‘be’ – to be between] that could then lead me further in. |<<>>|<<>>|<<<“Submerge myself in the process” (quote from letter, 1/3/2019)>>>|———— Thin, porous fabrics coated in the thermochromic mixm, held up to my noise/mouth, breathing out causes heat to spread, breathing in sucks cold air though the material. ++++//This interplay of bodily heat and electronic heat drew me in…. ——————————- Once submerged in the process, it was easy to keep meandering…. one idea leads to the next to the next… until I had lost track of what the point was. It was here that i made some of my most surprising and motivating discoveries >>>>>> Continuing to mix the pigment with vaseline, nail varnish, water…… and finally wax. I never would have thought that the pigment would mix so well with wax! And that I would return to my childhood enthusiasm for poking my fingers into melting candles, dripping it on snow and making thermochromic candles. I used snow to make moulds, bringing in the outdoors, seasonal materials, adding lines of thread for composite flexibility and surface coverage…. +++++// Experiments in creating surface heating with carbon paint were not successful. ——————— ((((Wanting to be submerged, lost, aimless…. but also needing to feel comfortable in this state. grappling for what I had experience with.)))) +++++++//What I found most intriguing was the interplay between the electrically controllable heating and the bodily (uncontrollable) heating and cooling caused by breathing as well as the heat from regular body temperature. I wanted to achieve a setup that would allow for these two different sources of heat to meet through the material actuation in order to reveal something that would otherwise not occur. ———–>>>>>>>>_______I am able to electrically change the colour of the thermochromic wax mix by embedding lines of steel thread (10-20 Ohm and can withstand high temp) in the wax, crimping their ends to copper threads, powering them from a 3.7V LiPo battery. Controlling the heating via a MOSFET triggered by a microcontroller. Controlling the microcontroller with a sensor. Controlling the sensor with my body heat._______<<<<<<<<———- ::: Combining wax with threads resulted in a rigid yet fragile structures that could hold their form while retaining some flexibility. Since the circuitry was also comprised of connected threads it should also become such an integral part of the structure. Since the wax became soft with the same heat that was intended to change the colour the shape could shift, and I would love to to collapse. ::: Pressing my face into the fold snow and then dripping molten thermochromic beeswax onto the cold snow mound. I was making a mask, a object to use to tell of change and control. */>

Getting Lost and Unlearning Certainty: Material Encounters in an Electronic Craft Practice
by David Cole and Hannah Perner-Wilson, published in the Critical Maker Reader
Download PDF >> https://networkcultures.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/CriticalMakersReader.pdf
Free copy >> https://form.jotformeu.com/93243662209356

Links:

Flickr set: https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157690651821403
YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/user/Plusea
>> http://networkcultures.org/blog/2018/10/31/call-for-contributions-the-critical-makers-reader/

KOBA Schneiderei für Elektronische Textilien is a tailor shop for electronic textiles and wearable technology in Berlin. Instead of speculating about a future in which technology is tailor-made, we want to make this scenario a reality and see what people can imagine. We opened in December 2017 and closed in January 2019.

>> final commissions PDF
>> KOBA website
>> Dear Future Customer

Shop logo:

After one year of running the tailor shop, we closed in January 2019. These are the commissions we realized:

Dominique’s Crochet Resistance
>> http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/crochet-resistance/

Boris’s Trombone Breathing Vest
>> https://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/trombone-breathing/

Arne’s Lazy Programming Gloves
>> http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/a-lazy-programmers-datagloves/

Deborah’s Burning Bollero
>> https://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/burning-bolero/

Tom’s EMF Listener Hoodie
>> https://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/emf-listener-hoodie/

Sebastian’s Party Geometric Jacket
>> http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/sebastians-party-geometric-jacket/

Wim’s Storytelling Vest
>> http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/storytelling-vest/

Abele’s Handbag Fix
>> https://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/handbag-fix-for-a/

Maurin’s Shepard Matrix
>> https://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/maurins-shepard-matrix/

Xavier’s Discolele Costume
>> https://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/discolele/

Tom’s Extra Digit Sensor
>> https://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/extra-digit-sensor/

A WEARABLE STUDIO PRACTICE WEBSITE

Now is a perfect time for electrical engineers to become mobile with their practice. It’s not just electronic parts that have become smaller and smaller, but also many of the tools used in electrical engineering (power supply, multimeter, oscilloscope, programmers… ) have become more compact and portable. Many practices closely related to hardware such as software/programming and CAD/design have been liberated from static infrastructures because laptop computers – their primary tools – are powerful and lightweight. Co-working spaces and FabLabs offer temporary workspaces all over the world. There is an awareness of the benefits of local production and site-specific development.

Wearable Studio Collection

A collection of wearable and portable accessories that allow the electronic textile engineer to travel, build hardware on-site, incorporate local craft techniques and resources, experience different cultures, encounter and collaborate with other disciplines and share their skills with others.

The items in this Wearable Studio Collection are in various stages of development, but shall eventually be documented in great detail, so that they can be reproduced by others. I hope to encourage copies, modifications and improvements to these designs.

Body modifications…

>> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/collections/72157671954961281/

>> How To Get What You Want