Joanna Berzowska

Artengine's UNHANDED

Joanna Berzowska explores the realm of electronic textiles, a subset of wearables. She introduces the broad spectrum of projects within this field, from electronic tattoos to biometric shirts. Berzowska advocates for exploring textiles beyond wrist-worn devices, emphasizing her efforts to integrate sensors into traditional textiles. She underscores the importance of respecting manufacturing traditions while incorporating new technologies. Challenges include overcoming a product-oriented mindset and embracing the complexity of electronic materials. Berzowska envisions leveraging existing manufacturing infrastructure and interdisciplinary collaboration to shape the future of materiality. Throughout the talk, she offers insights into the innovative potential of electronic textiles and the intersection of technology and craftsmanship.

This presentation was part of the symposium Unhanded. In this panel we ask about the variety of new relationships with materials that emerging with the increasing ubiquitousness of digital technologies. With the increased complexity of tools we wonder how do we learn about materials? How do we get to know them? How do we share this knowledge? We can now know the molecular structure of wood or metal without touching it. Is this a more intimate relationship than working directly with our hands? Does it matter? If the objects coming out of digital and mechanical processes are more removed from our handywork, how might they carry the mark of the machine? Should we be able to read the machine in the material?

Joanna Berzowska is Assistant Professor of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University and a member of the Hexagram Research Institute in Montreal. She is the founder and research director of XS Labs, where her team develops innovative methods and applications in electronic textiles and responsive garments.

Her art and design work has been shown in the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in NYC, the V&A in London, the Millenium Museum in Beijing, various SIGGRAPH Art Galleries, ISEA, the Art Directors Club in NYC, the Australian Museum in Sydney, NTT ICC in Tokyo, and Ars Electronica Center in Linz among others.

She lectures internationally about the field of electronic textiles and related social, cultural, aesthetic, and political issues. She was recently selected for the Maclean’s 2006 Honour Roll as one of “thirty nine Canadians who make the world a better place to live in”.

She received her Masters of Science from MIT for her work titled Computational Expressionism and subsequently worked with the Tangible Media Group of the MIT Media Lab and cofounded International Fashion Machines in Boston. She holds a BA in Pure Math and a BFA in Design Arts.

These are energy generating garments that are, by their very nature, uncomfortable. This one is called Itchy, and it’s very itchy. And as you move and you scratch yourself, you actually generate energy. Right? And the energy then powers these lights around your neck, which references kind of like safety beacons and the state of emergency and actually highlights the discomfort of the garments.

Weaving, knitting, those are very complex technologies that have been around for hundreds, even thousands of years that actually contribute a lot to the integrity of the objects that we make.

How Does Culture Shape Sound?

What does it mean to speak of “aural culture?” What does listening offer, as a tool or technique for understanding our world, that visual perception cannot? The sounds that fill our lives are dense with information about the interwoven cultures to which we belong, and approaches to their investigation can take similarly varied routes. For Linda-Ruth Salter, language is a primary element of culture. Expressed aloud it is a richly coded meaning system, but it can also speak volumes when forced into silence.

Interspecies Communication

Cheryl L’Hirondelle presents the process and ideas behind her new work Nipawiwin Akikodjiwan: Pimizi ohci, shown for the first time as part of our Entanglements exhibition. The work is a immersive AV installation about (and with) the eels and their challenges in the context of our local hydroelectric dam on the Ottawa River. L’Hirondelle discusses how her relationship with the falls evolved as she discovered the existence of eel ladders designed to help the endangered animals on their journey through the river.

Joanna Berzowska