Textiles literally touch every aspect of our lives and offer the potential for new dialogues and new opportunities to experience ways of living through fabric. The area of intelligent textiles, in particular, presents a rich area for crossover scenarios that span healthcare (mainstream and specialist,disability and age-related), sports and extreme environments as well as those relating to specific aspects of each. Intelligent textiles can be defined as those with inherent material qualities, those that have been engineered for specific functional purposes or those with embedded technology, which may be used in combination with the first two categories.
This five-day workshop, led by Anne Toomey, explored the role that textiles can play in the mediation between the user, the issue and the context of use. Through material experimentation and scenario-building and with input from specialists in the relevant areas, participants will explore and prototype innovative potential new scenarios of use.