This experiment is using the way of nonlinear processes on my project, this theory based on the book »Prototyping Interfaces, it introduces me to vvvv, Arduino, tracking methods and display technologies in an understandable way. Building on top of that, it opens new dimensions for my creativity, through many practical examples and the endless possibilities of prototyping.
The design process in interaction is becoming a complex equation with so many variables that I have to keep experimenting, making mistakes, iterating and testing!
The purpose of “Melding experiment” is to try to interact with the embroidery as much as possible using whatever tools I could, which are aiming towards a creative and disruptive goal, that is not exactly defined at the beginning.
Reserved assumption: “Chinese embroidery can make the viewer be an active participant”
Tools
Makey Makey Board
USB Cable
Alligator Clips
Connector Wires
Plug&play apps
Discarded Chinese Embrodiery
How
Alligator clip to embroidery, When I touch it, the computer thinks I’m pressing the keyboard.
Chanllenge
What are other ways viewers can interact with the Chinese embroidery?
Can I use the sounds with other media such as animation?
Can I create a program that triggers sounds only when the keys on embroidery are pressed?
Biblioraphy
Barth, J., 2013. Prototyping interfaces. Mainz: Hermann Schmidt, pp.2-4.
# AC Realisation # AC Process # AC Knowledge # AC Enquiry
In this blog, I use the way of Disruptive Creative Thinking and Reverse Assumption to re-define my project.
Disruptive Creative Thinking
Richie Manu for showing us his concepts and knowledge about innovation on June 8. This blog is also a review of some of the innovation concepts based on what he imparted in class, and repurposing that knowledge into my projects, displaying this picture not only helps me apply the creative concept of my own project, but also helps others to better understand my direction of my project.
Assumptions — Reversed — Solutions
Through this innovation workshop, I found a lot of disruptive directions in which I could make attempts as a change maker! The next thing I want to do is to conduct a “Melding experiment” of my project.
How can we encourage the Chinese traditional embroidery industry to embrace new methodologies?
Intervention:
The intervention of this project is an artifact-based intervention that receive the reactions and respones of stakeholders through works that combine Chinese embroidery and technology.
Experts:
Master of Chinese arts and crafts, engaged in Hunan embroidery for more than 50 years.
Researcher and embroidery committee expert of Hunan Museum
Director of Changsha Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center.
Director of Industrial Development Bureau of Jinxia Development Zone
Director of the Cultural and Creative Center of Changsha Museum
Feedback from experts
Highlight handcraft techniques, such as mao stitch，increase its educational significance in interactivity
More improvement of art forms, can add animation projection. For example, hiding the conductive thread on the surface of the embroidery.
Determine the theme of the embroidery work
Stakeholders：
People who has existing interest in embroidery or want to buy it
Feedback from stakeholders
The idea is very creative, the bird sound if more soft and crisp
Whether it is possible to add the element of animation, so that still pictures become animated to enhance visual spectacle and interactivity
This blog has mainly helped me gain a deeper understanding of what intervention means and how it can be linked and enhanced to my personal project intervention and extension of the question of my project
What is intervention
David Mills for explaining the definition of intervention to us again.
Definition of intervention (Resources from David ‘s presentation)
From my understanding, an intervention is a behavioral strategy that affects or changes the outcome. There are many types of interventions, such as medical interventions for addicts in the medical system. the intervention can be to send the addict to a rehabilitation medical center for treatment
Intervention (TV series)
According to the results I have collected, the success rate of these addicts who are sent to rehab medical centers is 5%-10%, but if there is no intervention for these addicts, the probability of success is 0.
Difference between intervention, testing and experimental process （Cai views)
An intervention, challenges how I understand the challenge/research question. It is not about validation of my intuition but challenge it. It is not there to solely to react to a hypothesis.
A test/ testing is a tool with a hypothesis based research
Experimental process is about methodological and ontological enquries
Based on Cai’s point of view, I want to apply it to my own personal projects， Help me better understand these concepts and relate them to my personal projects.
Applied acknowledge in my project
My question
How can we encourage the Chinese traditional embroidery industry to embrace new methodologies?
Intervention#1
The intervention of this project is an artifact-based intervention that receive the reactions and respones of stakeholders through works that combine Chinese embroidery and technology.
“Melding experiment”
Experiments combining traditional Chinese embroidery with sensors, potentiometers, animation, etc.
This online meeting not only asked their feedback on my intervention, but also explores the needs of embroiderers and the problems they want people to help them solve
Evidence of online meetings （11th，June)
Participant background
These craftspeople are all women and have been practising embroidery for between 4 to 48 years. The education level ranges from primary school education, junior high school education to Specialty.
Participants：Xiang Embroidery Craftmen in Chang sha city （Hunan province, China) Number of participants：11 Age distribution of participants：22-60 age
Question/enquiry
views on my personal project
problems they are facing or problems they would like others to focus on and help them solve
1. Feedback （views on my personal project）
Evidence of feedback
When I sought their feedback on my personal projects, such as the combination of embroidery with technology, I desired each of them to embroider their memories, identities and stories on a 3d embroidered duck. The response from embroiderers aged 45 above was that due to their limited age, literacy, understanding and decades of traditional thinking in conservative background of the past, it was difficult for them to understand or give me advice on my project, but they expressed their willingness to cooperate with me and support me in my project, but also said that the production of 3d embroidery was a bit complicated for them, and they suggested that it is crucial to reduce the man-hours of this production and the complexity of the process.
I reached a preliminary understanding with these embroiderers that we now start with a piece of cloth embroidery instead of making 3D embroidered ducks, because the materials and tools required are complicated and the production process is complicated.
When I mentioned whether it was possible to use everyone’s hands as the basis and then express freely, their first reaction was that it was acceptable and positive, because it was easier than 3D embroidery, and it was something they had never touched before. The themes of their works were previously painted by embroiderers, and this was the first time that they were related to their own themes. This time, they can embroider for themselves, not for others.
They immediately said if they were each embroidering their own palm prints and fingerprints, I said that I still need to think about and give them feedback on Tuesday, how to incorporate their unique story into the palm print, not Back to the realistic embroidery style （Time demanding).
2.Feedback (problem they faced and wanted it be solved)
Improvements of embroiderying tool (they hope someone can design or provide ergonomic tools to help them reduce the physical strain during the embroidery process, such as the spine, which can lead to spinal strains caused by bending over for a long time).
Increase in income (this viewer says they don’t have any ideas either, just simple and pure, to make a living and hope to earn some money with their own hands).
Talent people can lead them to innovate (lead them to embroider new themes, increase the interest of the theme, or develop new stitches).
Young people communicate with them more
Loing some weight, or try to stay in shape as much as possible
Summary
Through this communication with so many embroiderers, what I really feel is the simplicity of their inner thoughts. I am very grateful that they are willing to actively support my personal project, so I say that I want to protect this group with more enthusiasm. Help this group to have a voice in society, and I hope my personal projects can connect with them as much as possible. Therefore, next, I will draw and design the pattern of the palm print by myself, and then communicate with them, try to let them express themselves fully and freely under a simple framework, and show more people their own stories. Stories belonging to their group, in order to build emotional connections with more audiences through works. I will also discuss with the programmers and think about how the sensor and the embroidered palm can be integrated to better increase the interactivity, interest and the times of the work.
Thanks to Tia for lending me a book called LOVEWORKS by Brian Sheehan, this book is about how to create an emotional connection with the audience, which just happened to be related to my project, so I utilized the concepts from it to integrate with my project.
Lovemarks theory, source:LOVEWORKS, p17
Based on this theory, I applied to my project based on physical, embroidery, virtual concept map
Direction of “melding experiment”
Based on this direction, I will think and find my embroidery pieces, based on this aspect, I can develop later to see how to combine sensors and animation or even virtual reality with this concept.
# AC Knowledge # AC Enquiry # AC process
Bibliography
Sheehan, B., 2015. Loveworks. New York: PowerHouse Books, U.S.
The participants in this meeting include Zhenzhe Lin(graphic designer), Zaihong Jiang(embroidery craftsman), Xin Di(programmer), and Binxia Liu(embroidery research experts in Hunan museum)
Evidence of meeting
In this meeting, based on the first “melding experiment”, the following directions for improvement were summarized.
Highlight handcraft techniques, such as mao stitch.
More improvement of art forms, can add animation projection
Determine the theme of the embroidery work
Next step
Wifi module (to figure out how wifi controls the computer to play specific animations)——Programmer
The concept of interactivity in the visual arts became popular in the 1950s, as people realized that interactive art could serve as a bridge to connect artists and audiences in new ways.
What is a interactive installation?
According to the Tate Museum, digital art includes artworks that are either made using technology or shown in a digital format. Interactive art relies on audience participation. Thus, digital interactive installations showcase and activate a large physical space accompanied by mixed-media compositions, engaging viewers with responsive technology. In interactive art, it is presumed that the viewers will no longer be passive onlookers, and that they will be the ones to complete the purpose of an artwork or to participate in its realization, but it does not only aim to be physically appealing or intriguing, and it seeks for people’s interference instead.
Why I need make Chinese embroidery interactive installations?
Today, many artists have discovered technology as a new medium not only to create art, but to transform traditional artworks into innovative, immersive events.
Artists have long explored the use of technology in their craft, such as the utilization of lasers and video projection, in order to improve the quality of audiences’ interactive experiences, which means I’m dealing with creatures of emotionn, not dealing wih creatures of logic, if I could use these art form into Chinese embroidery.
As a tool and point of interest that promotes tradiontional handcraft education in younger generations.
Making a deeper impact on audiences through allowing personalized expression and the creation of memorable, poetic, and immersive experiences.
How to make interactive installation
The four components that make a work a form of digital art installation
Art work
Audience
Artist
Environment
Interactions in a Digital Art installation. Source: Research Gate
In addition to the four components of digital art installations, there are four categories in which these artworks can be placed:
Static (The category static describes works wherein the art object is mostly static and does not adapt itself to the context. In other words, there is no interaction between the audience and the artwork).
Dynamic passive (Dynamic passive describes when the artwork remains inactive in response to audience interaction, but changes with time).
Dynamic interactive (In dynamic interactive artwork, audiences play an active role and are given the ability to change the artwork when interacting with it).
Artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians, architects, web and print graphic designers, and editors
# AC Knowledge # AC Process # AC Enquiry
Bibliography
Widewalls. 2022. How Does Interactive Art Create Meaning? | Widewalls. [online] Available at: <https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/interactive-art-meaning> [Accessed 24 May 2022].
Zhou, H., 2022. Artistic Futures: Digital Interactive Installations — AMT Lab @ CMU. [online] AMT Lab @ CMU. Available at: <https://amt-lab.org/blog/2021/10/artistic-futures-digital-interactive-installations> [Accessed 24 May 2022].
“Melding experiment” is a experiment testing through combine the embroidery and technology together
I worked with a programmar in the first “melding experiment”, used a piece of ready-made Chinese embroidery to be the sample of this intervention.
The original Chinese embroidery
We have a discussion before this experiment, we talked about what sensors can be added in and why used these kind of sensors.
“Melding experiment”
Tools:
Mp3 player
Arduino Uno
MPR121 touch sensor board
Conductive fiber line
speaker(4 ohm 3 watt)
Crane sounds by touching embedded conductive fiber wires that have been connected to touch sensor board and speakers
The reason why we use touch sensor + sound is to hope that participants can touch the Chinese embroidery to feel the emotion behind the embroidery（Embroidery art work has always been looked up by the audience, we hope it can be closer to people）, andtouch the surface of the piece, such as touching a crane, it will stimulate the sound of the crane, and touching flowers and grass can make the sound of forest appear, thereby creating an emotional connection between the embroidery artworks with audience by technology.
On Thursday I’ll be organizing an expert meeting with this demo to get feedback and set the direction for my project.
# AC Enquiry # AC Knowledge # AC Process # AC Realisation
I have been reflecting on the answers of these stakeholders and all feedback I received in the past few days. The common point in their answers to the current Chinese traditional embroidery questions is that they feel that traditional Chinese embroidery needs innovation and needs to keep up with the pace of the contemporay society, such as the content of traditional embroidery (embroidery content) It can’t be old-fashion , it must be combined with the current mainstream art forms (such as contemporary art or surrealism ）and contemporary aesthetics(such as Bauhaus designs，a lack of ornament, the use of clean lines, smooth surfaces and geometric shapes）. Some feedbacks is that traditional Chinese embroidery and technology need to be integrated together, such as sound, light and shadow and other elements into the static embroidery screen.
Chinese embroidery (Hunan embroidery)
Diana also gave me some useful feedback on Monday. She said that my topic can have 3 directions. The first direction is to change the traditional embroidery education or training mode. The second direction is to do some handicrafts. The third direction is that these two directions can also be combined at the same time. And when I asked her how she would do intervention if she were me, she said she would probably revolve around some combination of embroidery and technology. And she thinks the most important thing for my project to focus on is how long and how much my embroidery work will cost. Maybe for personal reasons, I will let my mother participate in embroidery, because I don’t need to spend money because of this special relationship, but I will also consider, how can I make up for the embroidery time? Or how can I make this craft work in a short period of time. I hope that this project is the best in both creative expression and embroidery craftsmanship, so that it can be attractive enough and be instructive and futuristic in how traditional craftsmanship develops. I want to express my concept of the future of Chinese embroidery based on this project, so that more people can discover that this thing has never been seen in traditional embroidery, or they were inspired by my project and thus influenced by traditional Chinese culture. I’m very happy to be a pioneer in this tradional culture industry.
‘Rhythm of Matter’ explores the dynamic relationship between physical and virtual hand gestures through programmable interactive embroidery (Ganit Goldstein)
To sum up, based on these feedbacks, I personally have great enthusiasm for this project to make an embroidery interactive installation combined with technology. This technology has interactive elements in it. I need to consider how to add the feelings of these human factors to the interactive technology. What type of sensors do I use, how to use these interactive devices, and how to combine these interactive elements with hand embroidery are also the directions that I need to explore with relevant coding or programming experts or companies in the next step.
