The DXARTS SoftLab is a studio and an online platform whose mission is to examine the role of workmanship in artistic research, to redefine the use of crafting in the post-digital era, and to explore the body as an interface of control and resistance. It is part of the Department of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington in Seattle.
All tagged research
An interdisciplinary collaboration between the DXARTS Softlab and Studio Tilt (interaction design research studio run by Audrey Desjardins in Design), that manifests in the form of a print and web publication probing the connections of working with data-driven approaches and crafting physical artifacts
Eat This Cake If It Makes You Happy explores food as a metaphor, as an emotional shelter, as a portal through which one may get away and get to many places.
‘Ventriloquist Ontology’ explores the limits of control and points of hybridization between the human and the machine through the relationship of a performer and a wearable entity. This ventriloquist modular soft entity speaks through text generated using a GPT-2 language model, trained on a dataset of texts around biopolitics, algo-governance, the surveillanced body, and queer theory.
Paper presentation at the ACM Creativity & Cognition 2021 conference
Virtual talk and book presentation by Angelika Strohmayer on the intersection of technologies, craft, social justice, and feminisms
Virtual artist talk by Mika Satomi on e-textiles, wearable technology, and artificial neural networks in the context of DXARTS 472 Mechatronic Art, Design and Fabrication II
Fifth meeting of the Wearable Narratives DRG focused on sharing student ideas and prototypes
Fourth meeting of the Wearable Narratives DRG focused on discussing ideas about individual projects and looking at reference projects for inspiration and for building a work methodology
Third meeting of the Wearable Narratives DRG focused on handmade sensors and understanding how the different properties of the e-textile materials that be used to create variable resistance
Second meeting of the Wearable Narratives DRG was spent talking about e-textile materials and learning basic stitching and soft-circuit techniques
First online meeting of the Wearable Narratives directed research group at DXARTS, comprised by Esteban Yosef Agosin (DXARTS), Grace Barar (HCDE/DXARTS), Rylie Sweem (HCDE/DXARTS), Xintong Xu (Art IVA/ DXARTS),
Zoe Grace Kaputa (Computer Science), and Sadaf Sadri (Art Photomedia), and led by Afroditi Psarra.
This wearable synth was inspired by the complexity of human emotions in conjunction with the comfort of human touch. Housed in a weighted sweater, the user experiences a subtle pressure on their shoulders, while the instrument is being played. Mimicking the feeling of being hugged, the user can squeeze the arms of the sweater, actuating the pressure sensors, intern synthesizing tones.
VHF wearable antennas developed by the Revel Off The Grid focus group at the eTextile Spring Break Camp.
