Together with Maren Skyrudsmoen we exhibited fragments of our work-in-progress on wearables, motion and conductive materials at the ID_Undressed exhibition at Konstfack University College of Arts & Crafts, Stockholm, Sweden.
These were a number of questions, critical views and probes we explored for a couple of weeks at her space at Konstfack.
What types of interactive interfaces could surround our bodies in the future?
How could you communicate with a wearable motion detector, designed as an interactive motor?
April 2014
http://www.konstfack.se/en/News/Calendar/2014/ID-Undressed/
‘In fear every day, every evening, Surrendered to self preservation. Isolation, Isolation, Isolation’
Joy Division
Implemented at Köln International School of Design (KISD), Cologne, Germany.
Course: ‘1 sq m of fabric means clothing’, WS 2009-2010
Under the supervision of Patricia Hepp
It consists of three rectangular fleece textile sheets. Each one has a sewn grid, where wire was inserted in order to create a 3D sculptural form that can be bended in different directions.By shaping and forming the flexible parts of Isolation garment, the wearer can conceal/reveal parts of the body, especially on the areas around the head, neck and the front upper part.
For more information and pictures from the fashion show visit KISD .
I very much enjoy messing around with yarns and textiles. During a 6-month Erasmus scholarship at Weissensee School of the Arts in Berlin, at the spring semester in 2010, I studied at the department of Textile and Surface Design. There, apart from the project 'Stoff:Wechsel / Metabolism - the textured city’ I was part of, I spent many hours weaving and knitting with the looms and knitting machines at the university's textile workshops. Here are some of the knitted and weaved pieces.
What I discovered from both processes, and especially from knitting with industrial machines, was that random mistakes and failures during the knitting process- such as misplacement of the threads in the needleholes, or variations on the speed of the machine's handle- were resulting in unique and beautiful textures and patterns.
This was the design work from the Textile and Surface Design faculty of Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee, realized during the summer semester of 2010. Along with a theoretical discourse dealing with the theme, ‘Stoff:Wechsel / Metabolism - the textured city’, using performative and contextual work practices, material samples and models, artistic actions and environments were developed as a work in progress. The work culminated in ‘Re:Source Water’, a week-long master class was realized together with Thomas Willemeit/GRAFT in which students from the MARCHI / Moscow Architecture joined the Berlin design students.
It is documented in a publication/catalogue.
Students Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee
Vasiliki Tsaknaki, Franziska Schulz, Sarah Meyers, Laura Fügmann, Carla Zimmer, Roland Barth, Heiner Radau, Ludwig Stender, Johanna Krysmanski, Jaehee (Flora) Choi, Christine Meier, Sara Diaz Rodriguez, Justina Monceviciute, Terhi Laine, Bojana Draca, Amber Jones, Anna Kästner and Arianna Moroder.
Students Marchi/Moscow Architecture Institute
Alexandra Mukovozova, Ekaterina Lazarenko, Dmitry Belov, Vitaly Ozerov, Yulia Grantovskikh, Zara Martirosyan, Marianna Sarkysyan, Anna Krutikova, Polina Gnezdilova and Artyom Kuz.
Tutored by:
Prof. Lisa Schmitz, Fachgebiet Textil- und Flächendesign
Masterclass:
Prof. Lisa Schmitz Thomas Willemeit/GRAFT Prof. Tristan Pranyko
Here I provide some examples of my own work in the project:
Figure 1: Bird's-eye view, map of the world- designed on the floor by the whole group.
Figures 2, 3: Material probes; (2) Macrame with telephone cables, (3) wire and plastic net combined by using a heat press.
Figures 4, 5, 6: The Reflection Pavillion- a collaboration among Vasiliki Tsaknaki, architect Alexandra Mukovozova and textile/surface designer Ludwig Stender. This was a proposal for a pavillion placed on the bank of the Spree river in Berlin, close to the Reichstag building. It consists of a big surface constructed of lightweight metallic textile, which would reflect both the sun and the water, creating a magical atmosphere to visitors walking under it. The model seen on the Figures was exhibited at Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee in June 2010. The metallic, flexible surface is made out of aluminium foil, cut with a laser cutter and assembled in 3D parts.
Figures 7, 8: Landart- Installations with surrounding materials, in the forests around Berlin.
Figure 9: The city dressed in textiles.
This was the project in which I was involved during the six months I spent at HyperWerk Intitute of Postindustrial Design, HGK, FHNW, in Basel Switzerland, between February-September 2012. During this period I was involved in the process of designing nomadic labs for post-industrial educational contexts. Additionally, I was co-designer/maker of the HyperWerk graduate student exhibition, "Upstream: Prospects through Design" that took place at the Museum of Cultures in Basel (Sept. 2012).
"motoco is about self-help for empowerment, exchange and exploration. motoco is fascinated by difference, mobility and multitude as resources for design. motoco involves design students from France, Germany, Switzerland, Croatia, Serbia, Greece, Hungary, and Turkey. motoco creates equipment, furniture, tools, methods, structures, rules, manuals, networks, media, skills and strategies for design under postindustrial conditions. Results of motoco are open-sourced, actively shared and for free."
An important milestone of this project was a road trip in a tourist bus with an international team of design students. We started at the HyperWerk Institute in Basel, drove through the Balkans with stops at Zagreb and Belgrade, where we collaborated with local design students, towards Yildiz University, Istanbul, which was the final stop of the trip. There we organized a one-week workshop on „Immutable Mobiles and Boundary Objects for Design Innovation“, and an exhibition of the workshop outcomes.
Motoco exhibited the process of nomadic design labs and modular equipment during the 2012 DMY International Design Festival, in Berlin. And later that year, in September 2012, the graduate student exhibition of HyperWerk students that took place at the Museum of Cultures in Basel, was 100% nomadic and mobile, designed in the motoco spirit.
For more information, and more visual material including photos and videos, you can visit the following resources:
Motoco movie by Curry Western film company: https://vimeo.com/42760559
Motoco in India movie: https://vimeo.com/79286300
Graduate exhibition "Upstream: Prospects through Design at Museum of Cultures in Basel walkthrough: https://vimeo.com/49990118
motoco website: motoco.me
During my internship at Elena Poka Company in London from February until May 2011, through the Erasmus scholarship program, I worked for the Great Eastern Hotel Project. Specifically, I collaborated with Elena Poka, who is performer and artist, and designed several artifacts for a performance and a series of artistic photo shootings. Some of these artifacts were: a vest with an attached foldable mirror, a white peacock with a 3m long textile tale, and a sculptural hat, out of organza textile and wire.
" The Great Eastern Room is a room with a view. The view is extraordinary: it belongs to the Great Eastern hotel at Liverpool Street in London. Mio lives there, the room is her home. She is often looking through the big window down to the station, observing people walking constantly towards all possible directions. The window is like a big screen for her. Mio is watching other people's lives: the way they walk, stand, talk, or carry their luggage. She tries to guess what they think and how they feel, their destination, but also the reason why they travel. The reason why they are passing by the specific station, at the specific moment.
People walk in and out of the station in synchronised movements. It is a peculiar place, where one feels strange among strangers. A place where, every few minutes, there is an announcement for a train that is about to depart or arrive, it has been canceled or delayed. To Mio it seems that the station is a platform in a place-less place within the city. This station is her obsession.
While observing others traveling, she is preparing her own trip by collecting her stuff from the wardrobe of memories. This process is a long and careful ritual. Her memory locker is huge and everything is there: family photos, a fan, friends' presents, old perfumes, boxes, vessels, notebooks, aquariums, flowers, wild animals, toys, religious books, tea bags and battle weapons such as swords, guns and bows. Her trip is her odyssey, and for that she needs to think carefully what she really needs to take with her. She will take her memories in a transparent suitcase. Now she is at the station, in the crowd, in the window frame. The train is ready to depart for the war. "
The Great Eastern Hotel
Photographers: Katja (1,2), Boo Lee (5-7), Konstantinos (8), Marios Kokoris (13)
Performer and Art Director: Elena Poka
Custume/artifact designer: Vasiliki Tsaknaki
This is a sample of paintings/collages I did the last four years. I mainly use mixed media, such as images from magazines or old encyclopedias, acrylic colours, stickers, glue, and in some occasions yarns.
The last images are samples of sketches I did of live models, during a series of seminars at Universität Der Kunste (UDK) in Berlin, at 2010.
I have been trained in architectural and free-hand drawing during the last two years of high school (2004-2005). During my studies at the department of Product and Systems Design in Hermoupolis, Greece I attended free-hand drawing and colour/sketch classes (2005-2008), and I also took drawing classes at Weissensee School of the Arts in Berlin, parallel to fashion design drawing seminars (2010), outside the university.
Additionally between 2008-2009 I took classes of buddhist iconography with the greek painter Eva Persaki, who is based in Syros island, Greece.
This was the thesis project I completed in October 2011 and received a Diplom degree (5 year study program) from the department of Product and Systems Design Engineering, University of the Aegean, located in Hermoupolis, Greece.
The field in which my research was placed was ergonomics and wearable technology. I focused on studying sitting postures, and specifically what happens in our bodies, when adopting a prolonged sitting posture, such as when working in front of a computer for many hours, or when studying for a long period of time without taking a break. Since that was what I was experiencing myself during the six-month period I was doing this research, the project became autobiographical to some extent, or at least a self-reflection on what was happening on my own body, after working in front of my laptop for many hours.
According to studies on the field of ergonomics, when a person is sitting for a long period of time, the body has to tackle with a number of functional contradictions regarding muscle, as well as skeletal body strains. Since these contradict each other, they demand different types of 'solutions' or actions that the body (or the person), should take. However, even such strains seem to be relatively uncomfortable to the person sitting, the accumulation of such strains over a longer period of time is what causes more serious problems, e.g problems on the spine, back problems etc.
In order to study the subtle changes on the posture, when a person is fiddling on a sitting position, I crafted a series of input sensors from e-textiles (conductive yarns, and conductive textiles), in the form of stretch-sensitive sensors. I placed those on different body parts of people in order to observe what types of input data could be gathered, using Arduino and Processing free software.
As a next step I used the research method of Natural Field Observation in order to video record and analyze 30 people (age 22-16), while sitting and performing one of these three tasks: a) attending a lecture at a university setting b) working on a desktop computer, and c) studying (reading/writing). The analysis of the video material, in combination to the explorations with the crafted stretch sensors, led to the formation of some basic guidelines that can be used for designing "Smart" Wearable Systems for the particular context.
