Wanted: textile experts to test new prototype

HaptiChrome: interactive textile printing with natural colors

Date: Wednesday 5 March
Time: 19:00 - 22:00 hrs
Location: Makersguild, Waag, Nieuwmarkt 4
Admission: Free on invitational basis (read below)

During this event, we invite people involved in textile craft to explore interactive textile bioprinting using our hacked machine prototype and protocol called HaptiChrome. HaptiChrome is the culmination of TextileLab Amsterdam’s research in the Tracks4Crafts pilot Hacking the Machines over the last year and a half. In this project we explore how to hack fablab equipment into textile printers that use natural dyes and mordants, and print with varying levels of interactive intervention by the craftsperson.

Hacking the Machines is informed by local, traditional knowledge of printing: from the hand movements of the Staphorster 'drukker' to the inks and mordants used historically and today. Alternative timelines for optimising textile printing are also being investigated. So far this has been in the direction of mass production, often losing some of the freedom and expression of the craft with each step.

Is there another way forward where the craftsperson can 
be continuously involved and in continuous control 
in a hybrid printing process?” 
is the question we want to explore during this event. 

We would like to gather input and user feedback from textile printers, natural dyers and other experts on the current version of our HaptiChromatic machine and workflows. We also invite students with an interest in textiles, craft and technology to join us for this evening of experimentation. How does it feel to interact with the hacked machine? Is it intuitive? Is it playful, annoying, confusing or fun? Are there alternative ways of working other than the ones we suggest? We want to explore different levels of control over the printing process and different degrees of collaboration, depending on the needs and desires of the person printing.

Programme

Want to join?

The event is invite-only, but please don't hesitate to contact us if this resonates with you and your practice! We would love to have more practitioners involved. There are limited places available.

gro.gaaw@balelitxet

About Hacking the Machines

The TextileLab team working on this pilot —consisting of TextileLab lead Cecilia Raspanti, project manager Isabel Berentzen, and researchers Aslı Aydın Aksan and Michelle Vossen— explores how "hacking the machines" of a classic textile- or fablab can create new opportunities for craftspeople to innovate the craft of printing on textiles using natural dyes and their traditional processes. Our aim is to create an alternative protocol for these processes, where the artisans retain their creative, knowledge-holding role, while creating new technological interventions to enable hybrid artisans and equipment that values both the artisan, the tools & medium necessary for the craft to take place, and the technological advances available through code and machine hacks. All of our research is documented and published online, along with the files and code needed to replicate the machine hacks for your own machines.

These technological interventions allow us to offer new degrees of freedom and new degrees of collaboration between the craftsperson and the machine. To further embody the artisan approach in this technical setup, we are incorporating interactive inputs - tangible sensors to guide and optimize the language and actions of the machines. At the core of these interventions around textile printing, we bring together our expertise in natural dyes, machine communication protocols and interactive interface development. This research is informed by our model of Craftsmanship 2.0, which describes the skilful mastery of a hybrid craft that recognises the power of both human and technological agency, but also the value of the performative act, spontaneous intervention and varying degrees of production freedom.

About Tracks4Crafts 

Tracks4Crafts examines and transforms the transmission of traditional crafts knowledge (TCK) to enhance the societal and economic valuation of crafts and align them with a future-oriented heritage approach in Europe. Along with 14 other partners across Europe, we aim to: 

1. transform learning processes in physical spaces in which crafts people collaborate, 
2. develop new digital technologies that enhance and transform transmission of TCK, 
3. produce tools and instruments which enable capturing and optimising the value of the produced TCK (business modelling, certification and property protection), and 
4. create networks to foster and disseminate the societal and economic value of TCK

Find out more about Tracks4Crafts here.