Report 'BetaKnit Research eTextile Sweatshop & Test_Lab'

This report highlights the contribution of V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media to the CRISP Smart Textile Services project. V2_s main aim within this project was to stimulate innovation through artistic Research & Development (aRt&D).

Ultimately aRt&D will challenge the industry with new ideas in textile design and trigger scaling up from single prototypes (as are common in arts practice) to the production of small series. Many research strands in wearable technology have their origin in Do-It-Yourself (DIY) communities. Since the most exciting innovations in textiles and textile production stem from research in wearable technology, it is important that the textile industry acknowledges this pioneering role of the DIY community. At the same time, the DIY community may greatly benefit from this knowledge of expertise available within commercial companies. If only the two worlds could meet... During V2_s participation in the CRISP project aimed at facilitating an exchange between the DIY community working on wearable technology and the textile industry this belief was visualised on a small scale by means of a Research-in-Residency (betaKnit) project, a temporary workspace dedicated to the production of eTextiles, and a condensed program of workshops, master classes and community gatherings in that workspace (eTextile Sweatshop). The Sweatshop brought together the DIY community with textile industry to introduce DIYers with small scale and rapid prototyping production tools and methods. The betaKnit research focused on the creation of a knitted electronics ‘protosample’ to be passed on to industrial partners to challenge these partners to further develop it.

Attachments: 

report_v2__sts_crisp.pdf