Poetic Realism

I am going to join a workshop about OLED, in London. The workshop is part of the OLED Lighting Design Summit. This years focus is on applications, using the unique properties of OLED to open new market areas, securing the future expansion of the Lighting industry and this exciting technology.

What is an OLED?
It is an organic light emitting diode (OLED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compounds which emit light in response to an electric current. This layer of organic semiconductor material is situated between two electrodes. Generally, at least one of these electrodes is transparent. (Source: wikipedia.)

It is a very thin – paperalike material. It can even be folded. Its properties: thin, transparent, foldable, printable (liquid substanse), homogenous output, unusual appearance, low heat emission and high degree of controllability. That is what I found on the web.
There are several aspect that come with OLED light that pose an interest to a textiledesigner / artist. Its properties makes it possible to include in the very process of making / designing.

OLED and its creative possibilties.
My interest in that material is that I would like to experiment with the weaving technique. To find a way to embedd the material within the textile structure. In its tectonic.

Today´s materialtechnology enables textiles, and the making of textiles, to be more than just that. E-textiles, also known as electronic textiles or smart textiles, are fabrics that enable computing, digital components, and electronics to be embedded in them. Maybe textiles can contribute to create a new form of architecture? The term architextiles is a fusion between architecture and textiles, using textiles tectonic and architectures application. New materials (f ex carbonfiber ) could create a new understanding of architecture, a new shape of walls – and spaces.

OLED is a material that can certainly interact with its surrounding, viewer or architecture. It can lighten up the space. It can be a lightsource, a lamp. Embedded light. Something that could be interesting in terms of lightning, to create a lightsource that is not pointy – like light sources we have today. Pointy light from above. Embedding it into the architecture can deliver a light from the side or from below. Light intensity will be different too, a soft bright (day?) light?

OLED can be, in combination with printing – a decorative element: as an electrolumiscence paper. Maybe the lightemitting substance can be applied on fiber? And later woven and transformed into a 3 dimensional object?

The weaving technique poses for me a fine way to create. To create surfaces that can be transformed through different transformatioal processes into spatial shapes. To create architextiles.

OLED and the aspect of ecology
OLED have a very low energy consumption, and in combination to intelligent electronics they can contribute to sustainability.

OLED used in the arts
The London based design studio made an interactive OLED Installation called “You Fade To Light” in collaboration with Philips. They used the material Lumiblade OLED´s to create a wall of light which reacts to people´s movement. Watch a presentation of the work here. It shows the wall of light in combination with 2 contemporary dancers. “You Fade To Light”.

Another work that explores the artistic possibilities of small OLED displays is the design work by Jason Bruges called Mimosa. Using Philips Lumiblade , networked together in a series of flowerlike modules that open and close in the presence of visitors, like the rapid moving plant – Mimosa. The work was shown at the Milan furniture fair in 2010.

I am looking forward to join the hands on workshop on OLED by E2M Technology. Hoping to learn about OLED, its aspect of ecology and especially how to make an OLED, to get an overview of the material science – how is a OLED made. This is important to understand how to use it in creative products. To twist its appearance, and find ways of embedding it into the weaving / textile. And I am looking forward to be part of the Designer input panel – to discuss the possibilities for OLED. Part of that panel will be Arfon Davies, Associate Director, ARUP, Mark Ridler, Lighting Director, BDP, Steve Philips, Lead Product Designer, ARUP and myself. Visit homepage of ARUP. Visit homepage of BDP .

My interest at the conference will be, besides to look closer on the actual creation of an OLED, where will OLED position itstelf in the sustainable debate?
a – I would like to hear more about the substance. phosphor – how poisonouse (are there excisting certificates?)
b – What about the connection to solar cells. Theme here: energy harvesting, zero carbon houses.
c – What about the relation price – production.
d – How portable / wearable is the technology of OLED?
e – What about the humanitary background, maybe we should check what this technology can do – with case studies – for low developed countries. Like f ex the portable light project by KVA : Kennedy & Violich Architecture. They developed a non profit research project with the aim to deliver renewable power and light to the developing world. it is a portable light unit. simple, versatile, with flexible photovoltaics (solar).

I think the technology of OLED came a long way – but yet the focus lays on objects / design products. Next step could be to open it up for new creative hybrids, for example architextiles.

I created a new category: Inspirations. Motivation for that is to A) archive my knowledge sources B) make it public to share and C) hopefully create a kind of inspiration moodboard for my work and art practice. First of are 2 lectures of 2 of my main inspiration sources: Rem Koolhaas and Petra Blaisse. Both challenge the classical understanding of the term architecture (Rem) and Textiles (Petra).

I visited Rem Koolhaas Content exhibition in Berlin, a very rich creative fresh looking upon architecture show, showing as well works of the AMO lab, the research lab of OMA / Office for Metropolitan Architecture where Rem Koolhaas is a founding partner. Rem Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and in 2008 Time put him in their top 100 of The World’s Most Influential People.[1] (wikipedia). Listen to his lecture here: OMA*AMO; What Architecture Can Do?

My first contact with the work of Petra Blaisse happened to be at the Enmeshed Seminar I visited in 2010 at the KonstFack in Stockholm / Sweden. She is a Dutch designer and works in a multitude of creative areas, including textile, landscape and exhibition design. She founded Inside Outside. Unique in its genre, the firm combine expertise in various fields including landscape architecture, textile design and interior design. Wikipedia. Listen to her lecture here: Petra Blaisse.

Funnily there is a connection point of Petra Blaisse and Rem Koolhaas. Petra Blaisse worked in collaboration with Rem Koolhaas and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture. There has been another collaboration between architecture and textile in the past: the collaboration between Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich. Looking up the spectre of those collaborations gives valuable insights of the use of textile in architecture, use and meaning of materials in architecture and shows the performative potential of the textile medium in space.

On 26th of Oct 2010 I was participating at Ragnarock in Milano – Italy. Ragnarock is a nordic festival with the goal to promote Nordic best practices in terms of environment, green economy, and corporate responsibility through art, music, cultural and political meetings, exhibitions, and cultural events. Theme of Ragnarock is that North Europe and Italy confront each other on the future of Nordic artists, architects and designers meet their Italian counterparts to talk about the role of culture, design and architecture in the new Ecological Age.

Being held at the Sala Alessi – Palazzo Marino, Municipality of Milan, gave a special feeling to it – talking about case studies of how creatives are practicing the topic sustainability. It was very interesting to listen to all the speakers. Marco Lobina (IT) – Director General at the Councillorship for Research, Innovation, Human Resources – Municipality of Milan / Adriano Musitelli (IT) – Councillorship for Mobility, Transport, Environment – Municipality of Milan / Marco Germinario (IT) – President of Ragnarock Association / Olaf Gerlach-Hansen (DK) – Danish Cultural Institute and Co-Founder of Culture Futures / Mario Lolli Ghetti (IT) – Director General for Landscape, Fine Arts, Architecture and Contemporary Arts at the Ministry of Culture / Finn Andersen (DK) – Secretary General, The Danish Cultural Institute and representing Culture Futures / GroupGaute Stensrud (NO) – Architect, Code Architects partner / Jakob Lange (DK) – Architect, partner of BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group / Mario Cucinella (IT) – Architect, Mario Cucinella Architects / Henrik Good Hovgaard (DK) – Managing partner of the innovation and futurist company, Future Navigator / Aldo Cibic (IT) – / Architect, Cibic & Partners / Dorte Skot-Hansen (DK) – Head of Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, Copenhagen / Vanni Pasca (IT) – Design Historian / Adriano Gasperi (IT) – Scientific Committee General Secretary, Expo Milano 2015 / Jacob Fuglsang Mikkelsen (DK) – Artist and Race Organiser at CO2 E-Race / Gunilla Bandolin (SE) – Professor and artist, University College of Arts and Crafts, Stockholm / Janne Gallen-Kallela-Sirén (FI) – Museum Director of Helsinki Art Museum / Hafsteinn Juliusson (IS) – Founder of HAF – Sustainable industrial design / Per Åge Sivertsen (NO) – Director and Head Designer ofFINOslo – Sustainable fashion /Ewa Kumlin (SE) – Managing Director at Svenska Form.

Later the day, on my 24h Milan Trip we where invited to a dinner at Superstudio Piu, a centre opened to the creativity needs situated in Milan. We ended an efficient day, with networking in a very nice relaxing atmosphere and very good food.

I decided to contribute via giving an insight into my art practice, and the choice of being situated with my life and my studio at a very remote place in Dale inn Sunnfjord, Norway. My speech was about why Dale and not New York, the personal choice of living, – urbanizing the farm or urban farming. Just here I saw coherence between me and the nature. The speech I held in Milan showed my challenges in art practice and about the Do It Yourself – DIY culture . For example to make conductive yarn I use the wool of the family´s sheep farm and blend it with steelwool – via the spinning technique. I was talking about different approaches to sustainability, about Buckminster Fuller – the godfather in this topic, Li Edelkoort and Fowkes. Basicly sustainability understood as a system of open source, interdisciplinarity, and a non profit attitude as the only motivation to open a cross linked communication between faculities to create new innovative solutions to our challenge of ecology – that the whole world, but mostly the western civilizations, are facing. I ended the talk in showing case studies and talking about electronic textiles and their contribution to sustainability fashion and architecture.

View my talk here, click on the pictures to move forward in the movie.
KSiegmund

I will be joining an international conference exploring the relationship between architecture and textiles in contemporary design practice. September 24-25, Konstfack, Stockholm. Visit the homepage. The picture shows the book, Textile Architecture by Sylvie Krüger, she will be a speaker at the conference.

Enmeshed: Architecture and Textiles in Contemporary Design Practice, is a multidisciplinary conference exploring the relationship between textiles and textile technology and contemporary architecture and design. Practitioners from textile design, architecture, and interior design, as well as related historians and theoreticians will converge to present perspectives on this topic with the goal of expanding our understanding of the connections between architecture and textiles.

Confirmed speakers include Petra Blaisse (director, Inside Outside, Amsterdam), Patricia Gruits (Kennedy & Violich, Boston), Sylvie Krüger (author, Textile Architecture, 2009), Ulrika Mårtensson, Architect and Textile Designer (Stockholm), Mette Ramsgard Thomsen (CITA/Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Architecture, Copenhagen), David Serero (Serero Architectes, Paris), Rachel Wingfield (Loop.pH and Textile Futures Research Group, UK), and Susan Yelavich (Parsons, New York).

I recently purchased the book Textile Architecture and by being aware about the connection of body and mind when operating with interactivity in my art practice, this book poses a good connection point. Facts about the history of textiles being used in architecture (Bauhaus, Mies von der Rohe, Japanese Houses), materiality and geometric processes of transformation (to use textile techniques in architecture) are a good contribution to the challenge in my project. Different than from our culture of living the eastern civilization has a harmonic embedded understanding of the mind and the body, I think that the genre Architextiles is the last puzzle to the quest of mankind to the nomadism of the body // Toyo Ito, and a good way of how to embed our embodied mind into built architecture.