Textales Sunny Sunday edition

Textales Sunny Sunday edition. Photography: Gordon Jack 2014; Model: Carolina

Project realised by: Kristi Kuusk, TU/e, Johan van den Acker Textielfabriek, Gordon & Ioana Jack

With the Sunny Sunday edition, Textales explores the Do-It-Yourself aspects of digital storytelling on textiles. The canvas represents some important locations for a group of friends of a certain time, and the characterised 3D figures play their role in the group story. They can be viewed by freely downloadable augmented reality viewing software Junaio and edited, added any time by anyone.

The textile canvas (designed by Ioana Iliescu-Jack) demonstrates references to the balcony of one of the characters, the beach nearby, a volleyball court, the local restaurant, an airplane and other frequently visited places with personal or group memories. Through a tablet or a smartphone the 3D interpretations (designed by Gordon Jack) of the friends themselves appear. For example: a dog is taking a walk in a secret garden, a girl is playing volleyball in the court, central character is happy on his balcony, skydiver is flying through the clouds and the snowmen are discovering the beach.

Junaio application is used to detect images on the woven picnic cloth and project 3D character in the augmented reality layer on top of the textile. There is a QR-code that needs to be scanned with the application before a certain figure can be found on the surface. When detected, the character can be moved and resized on the screen.

Textales Sunny Sunday edition. Photography: Junaio screenshots during Dutch Design Week 2015; Models: Karina, Mymza, Gordon, Ioana, Purec

Textales is a project in the intersection of textile tradition and technological innovation. With Textales the storytelling through traditional textile and augmented reality fairy tale application is explored. Digital properties extend the textile capabilities and allow the long-lasting textile to change in time to follow the pace of life of the users. The developed stories demonstrate the possibilities for such storytelling.

Textales project is rooted in Kristi’s research about craft values and sustainability. The aim for connecting digital dynamic properties with high quality textile is to extend the longevity of textile products through changing the idea of what textiles can do.

Some 3D characters, that can currently be found on the picnic cloth: