Texile Innovations

VitalJacket by Biodevices monitors your heartbeat

Some time ago I went to the texprocess in Frankfurt, and only today got around to looking up the companies I had noted. The trade fair was amazing, and all the things my google searches put me on are fascinating, so I thought I'd compile them here!

The absolutely most interesting group I found was the Swedish group Smart Textiles, who work on mind-blowing research. I had to laugh when I read this quote on their website: “Electrically conductive fibers, interactive textiles, textile integrated medical electronics, textile acoustics, phase-change fibers, textile photonics. Taste the words; these are some of the research areas at Technology Lab.” What they do is super funky, though. Textile blood vessels? Technology is amazing. http://smarttextiles.se/en/

They also have a magazine, and if you click on only ONE link in this post, it should be this one. The entire magazine, packed with utterly mind-boggling work, in English, for free online. Seriously, it's more than worth the read. https://issuu.com/piffling/docs/stm2_eng_1


Moving on to other groups, here's one with heating, conductors, sensors, lights… http://www.frti.ch/en/technology/illuminated-textiles.html

Matrix Infusion Coating in particular is just so cool: http://www.outlast.com/en/applications/

“Research in anti-microbial textiles (…) has led to the development of bioprotective clothing materials(…). Biocidal functions can be divided into sterilization, disinfection, and sanitization in an order of the strength of the function. Biocidal functions for personal protection should be at least at the disinfection level, which can inactivate most infectious microorganisms.” (Links here and here.)
This is mainly for medicinal wear, but how cool would this be on winter gloves or protective face coverings??

Eco filament yarns: http://www.chainlon.com.tw/english/product/brand.php?dpid=10

You can’t tell me this isn’t adorable. http://www.chinareflective.com/product/SAFETY-RAINCOAT_CSW-009.html

Flame-resistant fabric is badass: http://pyro-tex.de/the-fiber/

http://organoclick.com/ develops non-toxic and sustainable methods for the textile and nonwoven (wood, etc) industry, particularly water-repellant coatings, fabric stiffeners and original fibers.

Suuuuuper cool is the Hövding helmet, which is a neck brace that inflates (much like a car’s airbag) into a protective helmet! It’s amazing; check this out: https://hovding.com/ 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikYFfxpu3I0

Not really textile-related since it dissolves in water, electric paint is still really neat. It can be used on a variety of surfaces, including skin, to create electric circuits. https://www.bareconductive.com/

LFLECT does neat things with reflective fibers: https://lflect.com/collections/LFLECT

Then there’s this strange and intriguing art/fashion concept of using the wearer’s movement to generate electric energy, which then powers a function of the garment. The hooded dress plays calming sounds near the wearer’s ears when the grotesquely exaggerated back is touched, fidgeting with the rope-like scarves causes one to light up, and pulling at the strap harness illuminates the pockets of the dress. Rather bizarre, but interesting. http://www.captain-electric.net/site/dresses.php

Biodevices’ VitalJacket is a wearable cardiomonitor, and not only is it a great medical device (since it easily monitors the wearer’s heart condition over hours, in a comfortable way), it’s also pretty gorgeous. Here’s the website, and an image of the shirt is above. http://www.vitaljacket.com/?page_id=156

For an even greater medical innovation, check out Mollii, the elektrodress that helps people with spasticity (cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury and other disabilities). It looks comfortable, the feedback seems to have been overwhelmingly good, and a few hours of wear help with motor functions for days! http://inerventions.se/en/

You've likely heard of fabric spray, but in case you somehow missed it: http://www.fabricanltd.com/

I would love for thermochromic (temperature sensitive) paint to be developed for stove tops, so that you can see at a glance what temperature the surface has. It seems you can get thermochromic strips (here), but I haven’t found anything about thermochromically coated appliances or dishes so far. And if you haven’t seen this table (and the comments about it), you’re missing out!

Very much worth checking out are the INDEX design award finalists 2017: http://designtoimprovelife.dk/category/award2017/
They don’t, in general, have much textile or fashion innovation, but SO many amazing projects and technological advances.

Then there's auxetic textiles, which stretch in fascinating and highly artistic ways: https://youtu.be/j6iDcIYTqNQ

And that’s it for the day! With all this new stuff going on, I wonder how long it’ll take for someone to create electricity-conductive tattoos and embed LEDs into their skin to make them light up. Between 3D printed organs, textile veins, electric generators in our own clothing and fabrics that dissolve at the touch of water, I feel like I live in a sci-fi world already.

Wintergatan

 

Meet the Swedish band Wintergatan, "Milky Way", with their debut song Sommarfågel. 

This is from 2013, but I only just found out about the band today because of their amazing "Marble Machine" video which you really need to check out here. They do such interesting things with both their music and their visuals, so hop over to youtube to get better acquainted!

Sana Takeda

A Japanese artist currently working mainly for Marvel, Sana Takeda came to my attention for her collaboration with writer Marjorie Liu on the series Monstress. It's an intrically drawn, stark tale of power and pain, supernatural forces and a particular barbaric type of slavery, and is an extremely compelling read.

This review, in particular, struck me and deserves to be shared: “That tenuous space between survival and terror is where Monstress lives. It’s a comic book with mud in its blood, unafraid to be a swirling epic as well as a ghastly dark fantasy.” – Vox

Acquainted With The Night

by Robert Frost

Yasunari Kawabata

The first Japanese author to have received the Nobel Prize for Literature, Yasunari Kawabata is a name I had regrettably not heard before today. Having read and thoroughly enjoyed his short story "The Grasshopper and the Bell Cricket", I purchased his "Palm-Of-The-Hand Stories" - a series of short stories written over the span of his career - and greatly look forward to reading them!

I picked up also the collection of short stories "A Tranquil Star: Unpublished Stories" by Primo Levi (an Italian writer) and "Ecstatic Cahoots: Fifty Short Stories" by Stuart Dybek - an American author whose excellent article "The Surprising Power of Stories That Are Shorter Than Short Stories" introduced me to both previously named writers. In it, he discusses the dual visuality of haiku in their original form, speaks of poetry in fiction, and wraps up the article with the beautiful finishing lines: "Even though we all write on computers now, I still think of writing as words on paper. And when you write a story or a poem, it just illuminates. Meaning shines through words like light through cut paper, beaming out into the night, and projecting its image onto another person’s heart."

Enhanced Illustration by Bill Wright

Interested in mixing traditional and digital illustration?
Last year I attended a short course at Central Saint Martins under Bill Wright, and he's now offering the same course as an online class - for £25! The live course continues to cost £550, and with the online course you get everything I got at the live course. I cannot emphasize enough what a steal this is - Bill is an excellent instructor, bringing in self-made videos, Adobe Certified Expert assistants, a thorough knowledge of both illustration techniques and the business of selling your work, and a willingness to impart all his knowledge in a clear and concise way.

Sound interesting? What if I said that you don't need prior knowledge of how to use Photoshop - or any technical knowledge when it comes to illustration? You'll get great tutorials for both, as well as a group of international and diverse artists working and learning alongside you. If you already know one - or both - then that's great, too! I already knew how to illustrate and use Photoshop before taking the course, but still got great advice, learned about working in different fields, met some very talented people, and created new and fresh art.

The online course isn't as time-limited as the live one, and you'll get a series of lessons (with written discussion, assignments, illustrations and video links) over a period of 7 weeks. Have a poke around his website (eshortcourses.uk) and the facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/156679341345879/), and if you have any questions or want to sign up, send him an email under billwrightmail@gmail.com. Go for it!

Colors of the World

Hey there! So I've had a project in the works that I debuted on Monday: Colors of the World! It's an artistic project exploring different cultures around the world, looking at traditional arts, textiles, patterns, culture, language and much more. Each month I'll be working on a new culture or country, posting a photoshoot at the beginning of each month and following it up with blog posts over on the website, so check it out! It's in its beginning stages still, but by the end of the month there'll be something of interest for everyone, and I'd love to have your feedback and support! Here's the LINK, and a sneak peak...

British Museum London

I'll be heading back to London again soon (nearly exactly one year after my last visit), so I thought now would be a good time to share some of my favorite photos from the British Museum. Taken in wildly different exhibits, here you have everything from the Netherlands to Greece!

 

Konrad Adenauer

"History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided."

Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer, German Chancellor from 1949 - 1963, was the oldest democratically elected leader in world history. He was 73 at the time of his election.

In 1917, during World War I, he was mayor of Cologne, an office he lost when Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933. Persecuted for his criticism of the new regime, he was imprisoned in 1944 (some sources say he was in fact sent to a concentration camp), but was restored to his former office at the end of World War II. (Interestingly, he was restored to the position by U.S. military authorities, but it only took the British four months to remove him from office after they assumed control of the city. Apparently they hadn't appreciated the way he considered Germans their equals.)

Just a few years after his renewed fall from office he was appointed by the Bundestag as chancellor to Germany - by a majority of only one vote. He kept the office for fourteen years, founding the Bundeswehr (German army), bringing Germany into NATO, and bringing about the Élysée Treaty between West Germany and France. He was much criticized for refusing to even attempt unification between East and West Germany, believing that a strong, democratic West Germany allied with Western powers would act as a sort of magnet that would bring down the East German regime without the to him distasteful need to deal with the Soviet Union. He called his policy "Politik der Stärke" - Policy of Strength.

He is remembered as one of Germany's greatest Chancellors - indeed, in 2003 he was voted the "greatest German of all time" in a contest by the television broadcaster ZDF, for which more than three million votes were cast.

Andrew Tarusov

There's a lot of Disney fan-art out there, but the villains are less commonly depicted than the princesses. Originally from Russia, this California-based artist created pin-up versions of some of Disney's most iconic villains - and they look gorgeous! Check this out:

Lady Tremaine from Cinderella

The Evil Queen from Snow White

Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty

Mother Gothel from Tangled

Madame Medusa from The Rescuers

Ursula from The Little Mermaid

무시무시한

무시무시한 is a Korean word that, transliterated, looks like this: mushimushihan. 

Guess what it means? Hellacious, ghastly, horrific, and many other such synonyms. A word that sounds like "mushy"! (Of course, "Muschi" in German means vagina... You can imagine my classmates' reactions the first time I used the word "mushy" in English class...)

...That's pretty much all I have to say about mushimushihan. I just thought it was a neat word (and "hellacious" as well)! You're welcome?

Rob Gonsalves

Rob Gonsalves is a surrealist painter (or "painter of magic realism", as Wikipedia calls him) born in Toronto, Canada. His paintings really are magical, typically merging two different concepts and scenes into one image that needs to be seen to be believed. Let me share with you a few of my favorites, and look at his other beautiful work here!

Vi Hart

Victoria Hart is a self-described "recreational mathemusician", and does very neat things with - you guessed it! - math and music. Above is her video "Twelve Tones", a fascinating exploration of such songs as "Mary Had A Little Lamb" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" accompanied by neat little bits of information and some very cute drawings. It's funny, it's engaging, it's really very interesting, so check it out!

She has many other videos on her YouTube channel, and funny blog posts about the making of these on her website, so feel free to explore further. (Mom, you would probably enjoy watching her "Doodle Music" video with the little two!)

William Butler Yeats

Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W. B. Yeats was an Irish poet who recerived the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923 as the first Irishman so honored. The Nobel Committee described his work as "always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation."

Tamsin van Essen

This artist is a British ceramicist who does some very interesting concept work based on scientific, medical and social historic themes. I found her "Vanitas" project particularly beautiful (probably because I'm very fond of swirls and squiggles), and here is her description for it:

Vanitas Vanitatum
A garniture of beauty and decay

This collection explores the transience of beauty and the vulnerability of excess. Inspired by the melancholy opulence of 17th century Dutch vanitas paintings, and the tragic allure of Dickens' Satis House, I aim to capture the fragile moment when abundance turns to decay.

An exuberance of decoration disrupts the vases' forms, implying deterioration and ruin. Frozen in time just as disintegration begins, the vases represent an ornamental memento mori, hinting at the impermanence of existence and the inevitable decline of beauty.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Today I finally read the first and greatest classic of vampire literature: Dracula! What a fascinating read, and so well-written even though the language seems rather antiquated now. (I found it particularly lovely how commonly people would be described as being "sweet" - speaking sweetly, or with a sweet look in their eye, or any number of sweet things - and this heedless of gender. What a great word!)

My favorite character was definitely Van Helsing, not because probably the most famous vampire anime is called Hellsing (and the main vampire, Alucard, is a fascinatingly creepy person), but because he was such a genuine, passionate, yet logical person. It was he, more than anyone else, that brought together the group of people going up against Count Dracula, he who spurred them on and cautioned them and was both wise and passionate in his speech and manner.

Interesting also was finding out that the entire story is told through diary entries and letters, something I hadn't realized before starting the book. If you haven't read it, you can do so here! It's quite a compelling read.

Marcin Sacha

The air today smelled of snow and winter, and Marcin Sacha's work seems appropriately dreamy and tranquil to share with you today. This Polish photographer has an incredible portfolio full of colors both muted and vibrant, breathtaking landscapes, candid photos of people, and surrealist photography - and it is all worth checking out. I particularly like the foggy landscapes, and here are a few of my favorites.

From the album "Tuscany":

From the album "Fog":

Each album has many, many more photos than I can show you here, and it was difficult to choose only these six! Really, check out his portfolio - it's amazing.  
 

Bikers Against Child Abuse

Bikers Against Child Abuse (BACA) is a non-profit organization operating in 46 U.S. states and 9 countries. Their sole purpose is to empower abused children, and they do so by providing them the physical and emotional support that family members and therapists are unable to.

There's a wonderful article by reporter Karina Bland that you can read in its entirety on azcentral.com, and I highly recommend that you do - it's a touching, heart-warming tale of these bikers and the good they do in the lives of frightened chilren, standing guard against their abusers and their nightmares.

Here's just an excerpt from the article - follow the link for the rest (and photos!):

"The biker image is what makes this work," says Rembrandt, 54, who is tall and wiry strong. "Golfers against child abuse does not have the same feel. The pink alligator shirt and golf shoes standing in the driveway doesn't do the same thing."

(No offense to golfers. Some bikers golf, too.)

What Rembrandt knows is that a biker's power and intimidating image can even the playing field for a little kid who has been hurt. If the man who hurt this little girl calls or drives by, or even if she is just scared, another nightmare, the bikers will ride over and stand guard all night.

If she is afraid to go to school, they will take her and watch until she's safely inside.

And if she has to testify against her abuser in court, they will go, too, walking with her to the witness stand and taking over the first row of seats. Pipes will tell her, "Look at us, not him." And when she's done, they will circle her again and walk her out.

Graham Gercken

Today's artist is Australian painter Graham Gercken, whose Fall paintings in particular are spectacular. Riotous in color, yet evocative of crisp air and the sounds of nature, I would love to have any of these on my wall.

Shakespearified Modern Slang

This is too good not to share. Here are some modern phrases, and how Shakespeare might have said them. I particularly like "talk to the hand" and "TL;DR" (too long; didn't read). Clever!