Colossal: Can algorithms become textiles? Can local making spur global sustainability? Do smart fabrics make for intelligently designed businesses? Questions like these inspired Lidewij Edelkoort, international trend forecaster and The New School’s dean of Hybrid Studies, to establish the MFA in Textiles, a groundbreaking master’s program at Parsons School of Design — part of The New School in New York City.
2 comments:
The innovative use of textiles always intrigues me, bacuse fabric is something we so often overlook as just for soft goods and clothes in our lives. Things like fabrics being used to make structures beyond tents, or fabric with electronics in it, is so fascinating, because it's taking textiles further than just some woven wool or dyed threads. I'm especially interested in the concept of combining metal, fabrics, and robotics to create fabric that can follow programming to move and change shape and stiffness - how cool would that be for art for something to act almost alive, or change shape to make a whole new set or sculpture? For clothing that can change depending on the weather or where you are? For buildings that can be built up and taken down in minutes? For usage in space travel where storage space is precious and things that expand bigger than when they are stored are sought for?
I'm also in LOVE with solar fabrics, fabrics that can convert light into energy like a solar panel, or that can generate power from movement or heat like when you exercise. These practical applications for textiles have so much potential - maybe solar tarps for areas where power is hard to come by? There are so many cool and amazing options that this field has to offer!
This is such a strange and innovative focus of study. I think it really cool that the creative side of education is starting to expand and include thing like this – an opportunity to try and use art to further technology. I think it a very good thing that the program also teaches entrepreneurship because this seems like such a specific topic. I see how the area of textiles is expansive, like Sarah described, but is this technology being consumed enough to provide a whole industry for it? I would love to know more specifics and textiles and this program. How do computers play into the textile creation? How do the algorithms they talk about create fabrics? How can this focus fit into the world of architecture? I think it would be so cool to be able to easily constructible, moveable, and sustainable housing made of various engineered textile, and perhaps this is the kind of program that builds those kinds of ideas. Perhaps this program can pave the way for advanced textiles becoming a more popular or used product.
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