A fabric with no fibers

– Caitlin Knowles

A fabric is a multiscale structure of polymers, fibers, yarns, loops, and interlacements. To simulate it, we collapse that complexity into a thin computational surface – a mesh of triangles. We then reconstruct it digitally, approximating its behavior through stretch, bending, thickness, and weight, and its appearance through layers of color, reflection, roughness, and transparency. The result is a “fabric”, but with no hierarchy. A fabric with no fibers. Drawing on experimental work in fabric digitization and simulation, this talk explores that curious process of deconstruction and reconstruction. What is preserved, lost, or invented when a physical fabric becomes digital? Could a digital material carry intelligence, manufacturing history, or capabilities unavailable to its physical counterpart? And as digital materials increasingly guide the creation of physical ones, which becomes the ground truth: the fabric we measure, the fabric we simulate, or the fabric we have not yet made?

DRESS_CODE

– Leela Porges

“DRESS_CODE” focuses on the merger between technology and fashion. It combines looks that were 3D printed by a robotic arm through three methods: Random, Accurate, and Large-Scale with sustainable materials. Inspired by software engineering, the collection explores the aesthetics of the abilities and limitations of this technology. The thesis compares traditional methods, such as pattern making and fabric sewing, to 3D printing by hand and by a robot, where software becomes art and is translated into wearable objects.

What Does a Textile Remember? Tactile, Ephemeral and Relational Human–AI Interaction

– Maria Jose Rios Araya

What if a textile could perceive, learn from, and respond to touch without turning every interaction into permanent data? TmaqT builds on TTT2, a previous exploration of textile as a sensitive and communicative surface, and extends it toward a relational interface between body, machine learning and sound. Rather than recognising predefined gestures, TmaqT explores how tactile relations can organise themselves through interaction, producing changing trajectories and sonic responses. Touch becomes an ephemeral form of data: processed where it occurs, shaping an encounter without necessarily becoming a permanent archive. The textile is not simply a sensor surface, but an active participant in a material and perceptual ecosystem. TmaqT asks how future textiles might mediate relationships between physical and digital realities through embodied interaction, ephemeral data and co-created sonic experience.

TmaqT relates to “Future Human-textile existence in digital and physical realities” by proposing the textile as an active participant in human–machine interaction rather than a passive material or sensor carrier.

Somatic Alignment: Externalizing Tacit Bodily Mechanics via Smart Textiles GummiSoma

– Ziyue Piao

Textiles form an intimate boundary between internal physiology and external environments. Yet, key drivers of expressive movement—such as deep respiratory mechanics—remain non-visible within the body. This talk explores how smart textiles serve as active somatic mediators to illuminate hidden internal states. Introducing the Somatic Alignment framework, I present a dual-loop interaction paradigm coupling individual self-sensing with shared intercorporeal co-sensing. Grounded in vocal practice, I demonstrate GummiSoma, a custom e-textile sensing garment developed with Yamaha Corporation to capture tacit respiratory effort and externalize subtle muscular dynamics during live augmented singing performances.

Moving beyond open-loop data tracking, this talk shows how GummiSoma and the Somatic Alignment model establish closed-loop bodily attunement, turning smart garments into expressive somatic second-skins across physical and digital realities.

Beyond Physical Costumes: Exploring Digital Garments as Tools for Movement and Choreography

– Marina Stergiou

What happens when a costume no longer needs to obey the constraints of the physical world? Could a virtual costume become a stimulus for movement? This talk explores the use of virtual garments as tools for choreographic experimentation and embodied interaction. Drawing on research combining motion capture, cloth simulation, XR, and digital characters, it presents different applications of virtual costume in dance: from visualizing costume–movement interactions before physical production, to exploring virtual garments as visual stimuli for movement and choreographic experimentation. The presentation introduces ongoing research investigating how different virtual costume designs and simulated behaviours may influence movement. Through real-time interaction between the body and simulated garments, this work considers virtual costume not only as a means of visualizing clothing, but as an active component of the creative and embodied experience.

Knittable Electronic Textiles as Material Platforms for Computational Arts and Design

– Irmandy Wicaksono

Textiles are among humanity’s most intimate technologies: they shelter and adorn the body, carry cultural memory, and embody sophisticated material and structural knowledge. Today, functional fibers, digital fabrication, and computation are opening a new chapter, enabling textiles to sense, communicate, and respond while retaining their soft tactility and expressiveness. This talk explores seamlessly knitted electronic textiles as a meeting point between science, engineering, design, and artistic experimentation. Through a collective and collaborative work, I examine how electrical functionality can emerge from the material and structural decisions that create texture, form, ornament, and meaning across wearable, spatial, and architectural scales. Finally, I will propose a framework for functional–aesthetic co-design, where computation does not merely inhabit the textile, but becomes part of its material language through which art and technology merge and continue to evolve together.

Garments as Narrative Interfaces: Connecting Physical Bodies to Cultural Imaginaries

– Sawyer Feng

Digital fashion is often seen as clothing made for virtual bodies. In interactive multimedia works, garments can move between forms and work as a narrative medium.

Using ISTERICA as a case study, this talk follows four future fashion looks based on cultural research and linked to four related identities. With an AI-assisted 3D workflow, the looks first shape animated characters. Their patterns and visual markers are then transferred onto viewers’ live images through TouchDesigner, while selected accessories become wearable objects through 3D printing.

As these signs move from virtual bodies to viewers and objects, the audience no longer remains outside the story. They temporarily take on different identities and viewpoints. The project shows that designing future garments is not only about appearance and material. It can also shape how cultural meanings move between bodies and how a story unfolds across digital and physical spaces.

Designing the Moving Body: Movement as Material, Body as Interface

– Maya Kaplan

My talk will focus on how movement and the body are at the core of my design practice, both as material and as interface. Starting with my project: Human Marionette and show how digital design tools, such as body scanning and digital fabrication, allowed me to design and create the movement itself, rather than only the wearable objects. From there, I will connect this approach to my current, more holistic perspective on textiles, exploring how computational design and digital fabrication can shape not only the form of a garment or textile, but also its behavior and performance.