The Design Research Lab is a network of people, organisations, and non-human agents engaged at the intersection of technologies, materials, and social practices. Our aim is to design socially and ecologically sustainable tools, spaces, and knowledge that support people’s participation in a digital society – based on common principles of inclusiveness and respect for the planet. This puts the basic democratic right to take part in the digital sphere into practice. We start our research from individual lifeworlds and the needs of minoritized groups, beyond consumer majorities.
We are an interdisciplinary team of designers, researchers, tech-enthusiasts and critical thinkers from Berlin University of the Arts, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, as well as Einsteincenter Digital Future (ECDF).
This prototype was a design pre-study for ‘Design and Irritation’, a dissertation project on exploratory design for utilization during use. I built a new interface for a radio out of fabric, conductive thread and a sewable Lilypad microcontroller. The interface substitutes the usual interface elements of the device with elements that can be found in fashion or artefacts made of fabric. The microcontroller translates the interface input to the radio, which is controlled via transistors.
I tried to use exclusively dry good elements to make the connections. There are, e.g. several layers of fabric to organize the circuits. Those can be connected using metallic pushbuttons. Resistors can be bent on their ends and directly sewed onto the fabric.
The prototype is part of my dissertation project on “Design and Irritation”. I explore how designers can address the original reinterpretation of designed artefacts on different levels. The fabric radio addresses the interface level: While the functions of the radio are familiar, it is unfamiliar to control it via a fabric interface. The material and form of the interface should offer new opportunities for interaction that the usual interface cannot offer. It should also make the function of a radio suitable to be used in different contexts.
The fabric interface replaces the standard interface of a small radio with digital tuner. The tuning, volume control, on/off-button and some memory slots for radio stations are replaced with fabric elements. I replaced all the switches and buttons on the radio with cables to connect them to the microcontroller. Using the small Lilypad prototyping platforms, I made an interface to the microcontroller with plugs and transistors. The transistors are connected to the Lilypad with conductive thread and small pushbuttons, to connect the two fabric layers.
The belt is used to store and recall favourite radio stations. Putting the buckle in one of the holes will select the station. It serves as a multipole digital switch. The buckle is connected to power. When it is closed into one of the holes, one of the “poles” is closed.
Conductive thread has a non-trivial resistance. This can be used to build an analogue sensor. I sewed a considerable length of thread onto a strap. The clasp is connected to power. When it is closed onto the strap, it works as a potentiometer: Closing it at the top will return a low value, closing it at the bottom will return a high value, and the value changes continuously between the two ends of the strap. The microcontroller measures the value and controls the digital potentiometer to set the radio’s volume.
I also use a number of magnetic sewable buttons as switches for digital input: to search and tune stations, to put the radio on and off and to change the band. As they are sewed on, they directly connect with the conductive thread. Resistors are bent and directly sewed onto the fabric. If done well, they have quite a decorative effect.