I am participating in Fabricademy 2018 because I want to create an interactive quilt that helps a person sleep better. Put differently: I hope to design a cyberquilt, a piece of bedwear that literally acts as a second skin to the body, giving rest, comfort, safety and pleasure on all levels of sensing and perception. For example by regulating thermoregulation using body temperature, body movements and the outside environment as sources for an artificial negative feedback system that cools down or heats up a person whilst resting. A process of ‘bio-cybernetic exoregulating by quilt’, meaning that the quilt functions as a cybernetic skin or synthetic ‘fur’ that keeps the body balanced and suitable for deep and healthy sleeping, relaxation and recovery. In short: cyberquilt.
A conventional quilt consists of a minimum of three layers: top, filling and back. Usually the top is patched (made of little pieces of textile sewn together in an interesting pattern) and then quilted (stitched through all the layers) to bind it together. It has a firmly constructed edge on the side. Therefore a quilt has many options to integrate technology and cybernetics into it. For example an electrical circuit could be hidden inside or even used as a design element on the outside or edge. A cyberquilt that would support the body to thermoregulate probably needs several technological and digital applications. Moreover it has to be sustainable (preferably for lifelong use) and adaptable (for changes in someone’s circumstances due to developments in life, such as getting married or divorced, having a baby, becoming elderly or disabled, gaining or loosing weight, menopause, and so on). How can such a cyberquilt be assembled? How can a cyberquilt with electronics inside be kept for sustained daily use? How can it be washed and mended? Should it be modular, so that it can easily grow or shrink in size? Should it run on an external energy source (for example solar power harvested during the day?) or could it powered by kinetics and body energy, so that it need no batteries or plug for the power grid? These are profound design challenges.
@@ -40,7 +46,7 @@ _The very famous Aids Memorial Quilt with 40 panels on display, many years after
Many quiltmakers have incorporated a story within the design. This can be very personal, like a widow who uses her late husband’s clothes, or very public, like a group of activists stitching political messages on sheets. My own dearest quilt is the one my mother made for me when I was a girl. I have used it ever since (and it is in dire need of mending). Being an individual object for daily use, almost literally a refuge for the night, a quilt is intimately and deeply personal. Traditional quilt designs tell all kinds of stories, sometimes personal, sometimes anecdotal, sometimes monumental, sometimes political and sometimes all of these things at the same time. What visual design should a cyberquilt have? What story should it tell? Should it be a token of hard work in someone’s waking hours, like the quilts of Gee’s Bend? Should it relate to the personality or psyche of its owner, like a Native American name, and if so, should it be able to allow for changes? For instance when its owner discovers he or she is transgender? (Which makes one wonder: do quilts have gender identity?) Or should it tell the big story of climate change as a constant reminder to care better for the environment?
@@ -60,11 +66,11 @@ _Triangles are a recurrent theme in the Dutch landscape._
So many quilts, so many designs. Patchwork designs tend to be mathematical and tesselating, because straight lines makes the patchwork easier to sew. Quilt patterns often have more organisc curves, like leaves and flower patterns. Quilters throughout the years have named their patterns and shared them widely. So most people will be familiar with patterns called ‘flying geese’, ‘diamond in the square’, ‘monkey wrench’, ‘drunkard’s path’, ‘feathers’ and ‘wreaths’. The Dutch do not have this tradition. Traditional Dutch quilts usually have fairly straightforward designs, almost boring, with the ‘forever repeating triangle’ as the basic shape.
_Quilters of Gee's Bend used their own go-as-you-are designs._
_Quilters of Gee's Bend used their own go-as-you-are designs, made from leftover scraps, old clothes and worn household textiles. For instance there are Gee's Bend quilts made of old factory clothes [(denim and corduroy)](https://www.designsponge.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/042-02_CD.jpg) worn by the men of the village_
Actually, I was quite surprised to learn how little innovative engineering and also how little fashionable design is currently produced in the field of bedwear. And I was even more surprised because of climate change and how people are – I think – in need of bedwear that can respond to the new nighttime reality of more heat and humidity, at least in The Netherlands and more specifically in Amsterdam. I know my dream to create an interactive cyberquilt is crazily ambitious. I have begun with sketching and experimenting, for example with ‘thickness-gradients’, quilting with conductive thread, creating ‘pores’ and trying to find out how a quilt could communicate with the body. (Patches? A special pyjama? A wristband? Wearable bedware? See below for some images.)
