Unknown: Hello, my name is Sofia Guridi and I will present to you
our project Arpilleras Parlantes.
The following project presents how electronic textiles or
eTextiles can approach a traditional textile craft,
particularly Arpilleras and how each field contributes to each
other from a symbolic, material, and technical perspective. We
started with the question on how eTextiles can influence the
creation of interactive interfaces that enhance the
communicative character and cultural heritage of a craft.
And what is the potential of their use in a pedagogical
context by using a specially designed kit.
So we framed the project with participatory approach methods
and STEAM guidelines to put these two worlds of knowledge
into an educational program.
Our study suggests that connecting technology with a
strong cultural identity craft can help to reach new audiences,
revitalize the traditional technique and create new tools
for expression and creativity.
So we started with the concept of computational crafts, which
helped us to understand how crafting and computational media
are merging and how both cultures are benefiting from
each other.
In the world of textiles, new materials such as conductive
yarns and fiber optics, led to the development of eTextiles
(electronic textiles), which is electronics embedded into
textile structures, so we can create new soft interfaces to
proceed information and communicate the body with the
environment.
Artists, such as Amor Muñoz has been working with these new
technologies with local communities in Mexico, creating
for example, this woven shoes with solar panels embedded into
them. In these cases, ethnocomputing addresses the
issue of considering local particularities and allow
technological development without undermining local
cultures and traditions.
In our case, we choose to work with Arpilleras, which is a
technique that was born in Chile during the 70s. First as a way
so woman could generate new income for their families using
cheap materials such as wool yarns and potato sacks. But then
it became a really powerful media for communicating the
horrors of the Chilean dictatorship. So as you can see
in this piece, that is portraying a true fact, you can
see how two young students are getting burned by the police.
Nowadays, this technique has still a lot of relevance in
collective memory and cultural heritage and is maintained
mainly by the woman and particularly elderly woman,
which are struggling to transfer this knowledge into new
generations even though there is interest, but there are still
smaller groups.
So we thought considering that eTextiles has this
characteristic of processing information, we saw Arpilleras
as really interesting communicative dimension, which
can be a support to portrait local identities and
testimonies, and also a nice and easy entry technique that allows
personnel exploration and the creation of the stories and
technique transformations.
So, to unify these two worlds, we decided to work in an
educational context, and particularly following STEAM
guidelines, which is a framework for interdisciplinary education.
Our methodology was based on participatory action research
approach, and collaborative design methods such as co
creation workshops, prototyping and pilot sessions, where their
interdisciplinary team of people work together, like from
designers to educators.
So the first step was to contact a group of expert artisans and
invite them to participate. So this group was Arpilleristas de
Melipilla, which is composed by 10 women from 40 to 90 years
old, that have been working together since the 70s, and were
really interested in trying new techniques and new projects.
For the educational part, we worked with Programa Talentos
Peñalolén, which is an after school program for kids in low
income areas of Santiago, and that teach them knowledge that
is not in the main curriculum. So there was a group of 14 kids
that then went to 12, of 14 years olds with no previous
experience in those topics.
To gain some more contextual understanding and to see how we
could approach Arpilleras with eTextiles technologies, we led a
co-design workshop with the artisans where we design a piece
together, thinking which kind of stories we wanted to communicate
with the craft, and how in this case, sound or movements or
lights could add more layers of information to these narratives.
So we end up with a big piece with taught us a lot about how
to construct it and how it could transform from a technical point
of view, but also symbolic point of view.
With this knowledge, we transfer it to the structure of the
course in which contents we will teach the kids in which way so
the main thing was, you can see there that the kids will get
more motivated if they were working towards a final piece.
And we will tell them that they will be exhibiting a museum, and
after each class, they had a little exercise they could take
home and show to their parents.
With this structure ready, we start designing this especial
material kit, which was developed through prototyping
with local equipment from Fab Lab Universidad de Chile, and
tested by the team and then sent to production
The final kit was put together on a canvas bag to enabled a
group of people to work together on the same piece.
This was composed mainly of textiles, which are the ones
used by the artisans like wool yarns, and poliester fabrics,
electronics with sensors, actuators and microcontrollers
and visual support.
The main challenge of the kit was to communicate that these
materials that usually are not together could actually work
together in a compelling and not complex way.
So we started the project during two months, we work together
with the kids once a week, and we divided them into three
groups.
So the first part of the course was to show them about the
Arpilleras. So for that, we asked the artisans to give the
classes. So the kids could know not just about the technique,
but also about the motivations behind the craft, and about the
heart that they artisans put in it, and why it is so important.
Then the kids learn about computing, coding and
electronics using the microcontroller, basic inputs
and outputs. And to understand what they could do with them
already related to the textile pieces, so it could make more
sense for them.
Then we thought about okay.. we have all these new tools. So
what story we want to tell? So we ask them to think about their
experiences, their context, what has happened to them lately in
their lives. So what's the story they wanted to tell.
And with those stories already designed, their kids started to
embroidery the circuits, embroidery the pieces of fabric,
coding, and they were changing the tasks so every kid could
experience every step of the way.
So our final pieces here you can see one is about a food truck of
Sopaipillas, which is a really typical food in Chile. So the
kids wanted to show their daily mornings before they go to
school with this food truck. So when you touch it, you can hear
the music that is calling for the people to go and buy them.
And you see the mountains and the school, which is a very
typical structure of the Arpilleras composition.
Then you have this story about the park where the kids showcase
this love story where a man just broke up with his girlfriend and
his heart is broken. So when you touch the men, you can see his
heart pumping with the lights. But they're also interesting
elements like this LGBTQ flag that appear because the kids
we're talking about tolerance and their struggles. And they
wanted to showcase that this is really good and with a positive
message. So when you touch the flag that has a capacitive
sensor, you can hear cheerful music.
So regarding the findings, the first thing we saw is that from
a technical perspective, the eTextile technology added new
layers of complexity to the craft with new steps such as
circuitry and encoding, but maintaining the same codes based
on the contact with the soft materials and hands on work.
From a symbolic point of view, it enriched the communicative
aspect provided to be a flexiblesupport that enables new
creators to have personalized stories and engage the viewers
with new interactive ways.
This is related to the communication aspect. But
according to the artisans, the pieces are even more "alive"
now, because the users or the viewers are interacting in a new
way. Now they just don't see it, they can touch it, and feel it
the vibrations and hear it.
Selecting a culturally strong craft didn't only enable us to
approach a new technology with soft materials but also added a
layer of cultural heritage collective memory and
motivations behind the creations, that gave the
students a frame to develop to the work.
And finally, having a specially designed kit guided the process
in a really fluent way and communicated that these tools
could work together and there was not uneven emphasis on
different kinds of knowledge
Regarding the discussion, we think this project
differentiates from other computer focused projects that
use textiles as mean to connect with students and to give them
computer science knowledge.
But in those cases, textiles do not have a relevant position in
terms of crafts history and technique. For us, including
craft in a deeper way, inviting expert artisans to participate
can present an opportunity to generate a bigger impact
regarding the transmission of knowledge and new tools for
creation in an specific cultural context. And we really see we
create a new tool for creative expression.
Thank you very much.