Exhibition @ Piksel Studio 2017
Aline Martinez Santos, Annette Schmid&Veerle Pennock, Beam, Kate Sicchio&Camille Baker, Maria Paulina Gutiérrez, Renata Gaui, Shary Kock, Shih Wei Chieh, Teresa Almeida, Tincuta Heinzel
Within the realm of electronic and smart textiles there have been promising technological investigations that never quite managed to reach their potential. Despite these disappointments, industry, academia and art continue to explore the possibilities of electronic and smart textiles. Rather than presenting “the next big thing’ “Attempts, Failures, Trials, and Errors” seeks to understand the various stages of projects’ developments by exploring forgotten attempts and perspectives, less successful paths, and less mediatized wearable technologies and e-textiles projects.
As an interdisciplinary field electronic textiles and wearables are the ground for a series of interdisciplinary clashes between textiles and electronics, between software and hardware, between open source and commercial platforms. These clashes are producing inspiring work, but some encounters are also the source of frustration and irritation. Such issues, which we can call benchmarks, are rarely afforded a place in the spotlight. However, taking a look at the process itself says a lot about artists, designers, technologists thought processes. Test-benches are a form of thinking through and with the materials, a form of playing around, of advancing by small steps. By questioning the idea of failure and success, the project puts an emphasis on art’s critical capacity, while at the same time to poetically and self-ironically address contemporary challenges and concerns.
This exhibition is the start of an ongoing investigation and is as such a test in itself. It presents a collecton of the responses to our open call for technical trials and errors, failed prototypes, and rejected art and design works.
More info: http://trials-and-errors.com/projects