Everyday, we interact with machines that are hard, with devices driven by abstract electrical and computational processes. They are produced in faraway places by unknown people, then sent to our doorstep in excessive packaging. Perhaps you will consider an alternative narrative in which our electronics emerged from textiles and related practices. In this story, we knit our own sensors and stitch our own computers by hand. How might this change our daily interactions with technology and each other?
This zine introduces readers to the basics of electronic textiles and soft circuits, then illustrates how to construct an eTextile loom out of recycled materials. Finally, you will knit a sensors and test it on your loom.
Developed for a workshop at the School for Poetic Computation as part of the New York Tech Zine Fair. Workshop slides here.
