Retooling E-Textiles for Coproduction: Weaving Circuitry as Cloth

S Wu

E-textiles (sometimes called “smart textiles”) is an emergent technology that integrates electronics with textile materials and structures. While the field promises a future industry with applications for personalized wearables, healthcare, smart vehicles, and more, there are still very few viable products for mainstream consumers. My dissertation focuses on concerns for the sustainability of future e-textiles, and explores the design opportunities presented by craft that engage with such issues. Through the lens of craft, I will develop retooling for coproduction as one possible way for e-textiles designers to practice and explore sustainability through hands-on making. I begin with some background on treatments of craft and sustainability in human-computer interaction (HCI) research and adjacent communities, focusing on digital fabrication, textiles, and social justice. With this “design orientation”, I will then present the research undertaken during my PhD studies as case studies in crafting e-textiles design tools that resulted in deeper understandings of textile practices and histories. These retools include generative tactics, woven structures, and tangible computational interfaces, motivating craft’s relevance to retooling—how technological tools can support social justice efforts; and coproduction—an awareness of how technology and society mutually shape one another; in reference to design justice and feminist science, technology, and society (STS) studies. Lastly, I will present speculations for further sustainable e-textiles retooling and the future research directions in which my craft may take me.