Much noise about e-textiles

 

What if you could use fibers and nonwovens like the keys of your e-piano or as volume control for your synthesizer? This question is being explored by Michelle Vossen (MV), interdisciplinary designer and educator based in Utrecht and Amsterdam, Netherlands.

How did the two worlds of textiles and coding come together for you?
Michelle Vossel: When I was still studying fashion design, I was already very interested in this connection, but didn't have the time nor skills to get into the programming aspect. After I graduated in 2019, I went to the Fablab and Textilelab of Waag Futurelab, where I still work, to learn how to work with electronics and to get my first introductions into electronic textiles. And I was lucky enough to become an intern there while the Fabricademy program just started and see from the sidelines what they were doing. There were courses on e-textiles and on wearables, and here I got acquainted more with, for example, the work that Kobakant did – do you know Kobakant?

What is it?
They're from Berlin and they are amazing. Without them, I would be nowhere. They have a whole archive on how to get what you and they have all kinds of documentation on how to make e-textile sensors. So, I started making the sensors that they were describing and was trying to figure out as I was making it – learning by making – how to make electronic textiles. There's only 7 days in a week and I want to do many, many things so, for me in electronic textiles, I can connect all my interests like programming and textiles, technology, but also the possibility to connect them to sound, to light or to whatever it is. It opens so many ways where you're still very much engaged with your body. You're still making stuff with your hands. I had a phase where I was also doing a lot of digital fashion design, but then you're only behind the computer and rendering stuff and I need the tactile aspect.

What applications for industrial use do you see in your research? Or is that not even a question that comes to your mind?
There are quite a few applications to it. But for me personally, I'm very interested in useless stuff, in making stuff just for the for the sake of and for the joy of it. And I like to make textile instruments because of that reason.
But if you're going to talk about useful applications, you can make wearables for healthcare, you can also use it for interior applications – your whole house can be covered in conductive areas: for example, if you slide your fingers along the wallpaper, then the light turns brighter. I am very interested in the research of Pauline van Dongen, who started at the same school that I went to, ArtEZ, and she then also got into making wearables and smart textiles. Now she's doing solar design, combining weaving with flexible solar panels, using facades of buildings for energy generation.

So, such innovation always starts with useless exploration?
I wouldn't call her research useless exploration. I can only call it useless exploration for myself.
For my future exploration, I am interested in a more applied context, especially regarding interior objects and making smart homes, but: not in the Internet of Things way.

Without every data point going into a cloud and feeding a big model?
Exactly. I don't like that. I prefer being able to make your own electronics and your own systems. Then you get a peek inside the black box that is electronics. A lot of the products around us are designed so that as soon as you open them up, your warranty is void or if you break it, you cannot put it back together anymore. I want to be able to see what is going on because you can learn so much from that. I really learned the value of this in the Fablab at Waag. On the other hand: Why is my toothbrush connected to the Internet?

That's interesting to see that you believe in smart homes without Internet, without being connected to everything, that that's a possibility for the future.
That is the reason why we do these kinds of workshops to teach people something about technology and that they can also make technology themselves. This way you can get closer and closer to the objects around you. Why are they made the way they are? What do they do? And why do they do that?

Let’s focus on conductive textiles. Which materials did you learn to love in this context?
Since I did a spinning project like Sensor Spinster I got really into the conductive fibers and talking about Shieldex, their crimped fibers are amazing because they're super fine and you only need a tiny bit of it to get beautiful interactive properties out of them. And for me, it's a very versatile material because of the way that I process it through more artisanal methods like hand carding.
These kinds of materials, even though they may have more industrial purposes, are still very much suited for my artisanal approaches. In this context the fibers by Imattec come to mind as well.
Talking about useful websites, I want to mention Bart & Francis‘ website – I love that website. You can just hear them explaining their opinions about the materials. It's very funny, but also very insightful, and I like that they have more experimental yarn.

Finally, tell us how you made the connection between e-textiles and sound production.
There are a few people from the music technology department at the HKU University of the Arts in Utrecht. Through them I got to know Sounds Like Touch, a platform (that I now also work for) for artists and makers focused on experimenting with physical ways of interacting with technology. And I got to know Veerle Pennock, who is the person that I developed the MIDI madness maker together with. Usually, we do these workshops together because she's more the modular synthesizer music nerd and I'm the textile electronics nerd. She founded Acid Solder Club Utrecht where she's also teaching people how to solder and how to make their own electronics.
Just through working with these inspiring people, I learned so much about how to make noise with stuff. By stuff I mean with textiles specifically. For me, the rule is: it needs to be at least textiles and technology.

The interview was conducted by Sven Zedlitz of dfv media group with Michelle Vossen. Sven Zedlitz took part in the workshop Making: Midi Madness in April 2025 at ZKM Karlsruhe (with his musical partner Franz Walser) to build a midi-textile-keyboard. After soldering and assembling the midi controller and needle punching a few patches with conductive fibers, the textile instrument was running.

Caption 1: Michelle Vossen at the Gaudeamus Festival (images: Paulus van Dorsten).
Caption 2: Connections from the MIDI Madness Maker.

Source: Technical Textiles
www.technical-textiles.textiletechnology.net