2022
hand-woven touch-responsive textile and electronics
exhibited at the Metsä vastaa exhibition curated by Sanni Weckman, Rajataide Association at Galleria Muuntotila, Tampere and at Informal Circuit exhibition, Väre, Espoo

Touch me is a hand-woven jacquard textile woven on a cotton warp with mohair and electrically conductive material. Combined with electronics, the textile senses the touch of an exhibition visitor and reacts to it. When being touched, the textile inflates and deflates. The work has emerged from an interest in experiencing the world through the sense of touch, in the grounding interaction between the human body and material, and the interest in conductive textile materials and weaving.

The piece was a starting point of a larger textile design project looking into the possibilities of creating multi-sensory electronic textile surfaces that imitate living beings, speculating on how textiles could create an illusion of being close to another living being and being touched by a living creature.

photos by Aino Ojala