Crafting Intangibles

The Concept : Humanising Technology

Crafting Intangibles brings together a project resulting from an amalgamation of locally sourced materials, manual weaving on handloom, and some advanced materials and technology to create an artefact that is neither a piece of art nor a piece of technology when seen in isolation. The artefact exists in a symbiotic relationship with the people around it. The technology and cultural symbolism of the Bhujodi motifs create an audio-scape that completely transforms every being that experiences it.

The Product: Ecological, Simple, Functional, Aesthetic.

We have woven an aesthetically pleasing and functional fabric-digital music synthesiser. The project uses the fabric's all-natural, locally sourced 'Kala cotton' (translation: Black cotton). Reclaimed wood is used for the frames, all hand carved. The symbols represent the local culture of the 'Bhuj-Kutch' region of India, where the weavers community has lived for hundreds of years in sync with nature. We bring together these elements of culture and natural material. With our research into weaving, we have fused relevant electronics to create an E-textile artefact that makes a direct, tactile encounter with the audience and opens up new social spaces when exhibited. One of the main highlights of our project is that except for some electronics rest of the process is built using locally sourced natural materials and is entirely built using hands in a very scalable process. Thus, we present a very ecological approach to building functional, simple, and aesthetically beautiful E-textiles.

Create an Experience

People can interact with this framed piece of fabric music synthesiser and feel its texture, and have more than one senses, touch, auditory and visual, engaged simultaneously. Everyone who interacts with the work becomes a performer, and everyone around the artefact becomes part of the performance. Collectively the artefact transforms the collaborative environment through its improvisational performances and audience interactions that suddenly occur, encouraging non-verbal communication.