Bonad [Swedish for tapestry] is a project platform as well as several projects. In its basic form it comprises 1-48 servomotors mounted to a surface, an Arduino (mega) board programmed to control the speed and direction of individual or groups of motors, either through potentiometers or through a graphical interface, and finally any choice of sensors.

The overall purpose of the Bonad project is to investigate what it does to the depth, complexity, and quality of the designed textile expressions when one part of the material composition is held stable throughout the design process. We investigate whether this is a viable way to reduce the complexity of the technological aspects and thus leave room for more advanced textile design.

Specifically, the textile designers use the platform to develop new textile structures and patterns that can achieve interesting expressions with this kind of slow or rapid explicit rotations. How, for instance, a textile surface becomes more or less permeable, how it changes from an even surface to a surface with three dimensional features, or how pattern combinations can play together through the rotations. We expect to end up with an understanding of the potential expressions of textiles in composition with this kind of movement.

Furthermore, the interaction designers will investigate the power of these changing textile expression by applying the Bonad in different contexts such as a classroom, a waiting room, and a room for consolation.

The project team behind the Bonad include: Delia Dumitrescu, Hanna Landin, Anna Persson, Mika Satomi, Anna Vallgårda, & Linda Worbin.

The idea for the platform was conceived at the Interactive Institute by Pablo Miranda Carranza, Asmund Gamlesaeter, and Johan Redström.

PUBLICATION

Landin, Hanna, Anna Vallgårda & Linda Worbin (2011): "Wall hanging as an organic interface" OUI workshop at TEI 2011, Funchal, Portugal January 23-26 [pdf]