A Study Relating Computational Textile Textural Expression to Emotion

Abstract

Material expression has always been an important non-verbal, sensual method for designers to communicate with users of a designed object. A critical non-verbal mode of communicating is rooted in the expression of emotion which directly relates bodies to the environment. [1, 3, 6, 7, 8] Computational textiles which transform through electronic commands over time augment the choices and expressions possible for designers to communicate with people using these textiles. The problem is what exactly is communicated emotionally to people through the transforming textural expressions of the material? The author presents a study which relates communication of emotion to people via the aesthetic textural expression of computational textiles or textiles which transform through electronic commands over time. The author presents the preliminary results of the study as one of many methods which when combined with other design methods from architectural design will be used to fabricate a computational textile that can express a range of emotions through its textural transformations