Interactive E-textile Storytelling

The residency was dedicated to re-imagining and re-making an interactive children’s book by incorporating electronic technologies. The project explores the potentials of electronic augmentation for interactive storytelling in the context of children’s books. An existing handmade textile book from the 1980’s served as inspiration for interaction scenarios.

The starting point for this project is a textile book my grandmother made for me when I was a small kid. She used her skills as a seamstress and craftsperson to produce an interactive book. Embedding of snaps, buttons, zips and various other textile accessories allows for attaching, opening, moving, rearranging of the textile artifacts, making individual stories come to life. The residency aims at revisiting this book, investigating the potentials of including electronic elements in textile storytelling. The goal is to explore the possibilities new technologies might provide for storytelling in this context. Towards this, I work together with local people that have interest and/or experience in (textile) crafts, storytelling, illustration or electronics to explore new ways to create stories.