<nettime-ann> REMINDER: Open call for failed e-textile work and projects

Reminder: Open call for failed e-textile work and projects; samples, prototypes and tests @ PIKSEL17 Deadline october 1. http://trials-and-errors.com/call ----Sorry for cross posting----- Within the realm of electronic and smart textiles there have been promising technological investigations that never quite managed to reach their potential. However, despite these disappointments, industrial and academic research, as well as artistic inquiry, continue to explore the possibilities of electronic and smart textiles. Our investigation seeks to understand the various stages of the development of the field, exploring the paths of how and why they occurred, as well as when they did. Every development has its price. Failure has always been part of the creative process, as a learning experience. In many fields, recording glitches and keeping a catalogue of failures are part of the research process. These benchmarks are not always in the spotlight, but taking a look at the process itself says a lot about artists, designers, technologists thought processes. Test-benches are a form of thinking through and with the materials, a form of playing around, of advancing by small steps. But failures and trials have their drive not only in the technical constraints. In the age of “fast prototyping,” “publish or perish” and “start-up competitions,” our project is also an attempt to reflect on the present technological boom and innovation obsolescence, encouraging an ecological perspective which will take into consideration the whole cycle of conception, consumption, ageing, and degradation of technology. By doing so, this project wants to put a new light on technically overstepped products and failed prototypes, rejected wearables and e-textiles projects, and to launch a debate about the “fast” design and scientific practices that define our present. As an interdisciplinary field, electronic textiles and wearables are also the ground for a series of interdisciplinary clashes between textiles and electronics, between software and hardware, between open source and commercial platforms. These clashes are producing inspiring work, but some encounters are also the source of frustration and irritation. This collection of attempts, failures, trials and errors it is not intended to praise the failures, nor to minimize the successes of wearables and e-textiles. By questioning the idea of failure and success, the project will put emphasis on art’s capacity to critically and, at the same time, poetically and self-ironically, address contemporary challenges and concerns. In a sort of forensic processes and significance tests, this project calls for technical trials and errors, failed prototypes, and rejected art and design works in order to put into a new light the potential of e-textiles and wearables. Our intention is to show the richness of the processes, of what has been already done in the electronic and smart textiles domain and to bring into the discussions ethical, ecological and sustainability issues of wearables and e-textiles. The focus will be on the distance between ideals and constraints, between concepts and realization. -- Piksel17 November 16-18 2017 Bergen, Norway - -

Reminder:

Open call for failed e-textile work and projects; samples, prototypes and tests.

Deadline october 1.

http://trials-and-errors.com/call

----Sorry for cross posting-----

Within the realm of electronic and smart textiles there have been promising technological investigations that never quite managed to reach their potential. However, despite these disappointments, industrial and academic research, as well as artistic inquiry, continue to explore the possibilities of electronic and smart textiles.

Our investigation seeks to understand the various stages of the development of the field, exploring the paths of how and why they occurred, as well as when they did.

Every development has its price. Failure has always been part of the creative process, as a learning experience. In many fields, recording glitches and keeping a catalogue of failures are part of the research process. These benchmarks are not always in the spotlight, but taking a look at the process itself says a lot about artists, designers, technologists thought processes. Test-benches are a form of thinking through and with the materials, a form of playing around, of advancing by small steps.

But failures and trials have their drive not only in the technical constraints. In the age of “fast prototyping,” “publish or perish” and “start-up competitions,” our project is also an attempt to reflect on the present technological boom and innovation obsolescence, encouraging an ecological perspective which will take into consideration the whole cycle of conception, consumption, ageing, and degradation of technology. By doing so, this project wants to put a new light on technically overstepped products and failed prototypes, rejected wearables and e-textiles projects, and to launch a debate about the “fast” design and scientific practices that define our present.

As an interdisciplinary field, electronic textiles and wearables are also the ground for a series of interdisciplinary clashes between textiles and electronics, between software and hardware, between open source and commercial platforms. These clashes are producing inspiring work, but some encounters are also the source of frustration and irritation.

This collection of attempts, failures, trials and errors it is not intended to praise the failures, nor to minimize the successes of wearables and e-textiles. By questioning the idea of failure and success, the project will put emphasis on art’s capacity to critically and, at the same time, poetically and self-ironically, address contemporary challenges and concerns.

In a sort of forensic processes and significance tests, this project calls for technical trials and errors, failed prototypes, and rejected art and design works in order to put into a new light the potential of e-textiles and wearables. Our intention is to show the richness of the processes, of what has been already done in the electronic and smart textiles domain and to bring into the discussions ethical, ecological and sustainability issues of wearables and e-textiles. The focus will be on the distance between ideals and constraints, between concepts and realization.