Textile Reflexes at Ars Electronica Festival

This fall the Textile Reflexes project will be part of the Wearsustain exhibition at Ars Electronica! The internationally unique festival of art, technology and society takes place amidst the public sphere in downtown Linz, Austria. From September 6-10 we’ll jointly investigate current technological and social interdependencies and their potential future manifestations.

The stand for Textile Reldexes will be at the main hub of the festival, Postcity, in the Starts area. Hellen van Rees and Angelika Mader will be at the festival so get in touch if you want to meet up!

About Textile Reflexes

Textile Reflexes is a collaboration between Hellen van Rees, Angelika Mader & Geke Ludden of the University of Twente, that was funded by EU Horizon 2020 project Wearsustain.

Textile Reflexes is a project where shape changing sustainable textiles are developed to give feedback to users and applied in coaching situations. By taking textiles as the basis in our prototypes and adding the technology in a subtle way we aim to create a familiarity to the user. It feels comfortable, like a garment instead of a machine.

The first working prototype of this project is a posture correction coach. The vest can be worn over regular garments and it measures when the user has an incorrect posture. The flexible panel of squares at the back is then pulled together to subtly remind the user to sit back upright.  This feedback is intuitively interpreted, and causes little distraction.