NH: How would you define the qualities of a “poetic textile”? How would you describe the potentials of your textiles to (re)define our emotional relationship with home?

For me, a poetic textile plays with mixed references, anachronisms, metaphors as well as narratives. As opposed to be purely functional or decorative and “fixed” in time, a poetic textile brings another dimension into place, be it by playing with unexpected materials or by creating another level of interaction that teases out our domestic rituals.

I am fascinated by our collective perception of future homes. In the 60s, 70, 80s and 90s, our home of the futures were often portrayed as technology driven spaces. MIT, Philips, Orange for instance have developed prototypes driven by hard intelligent ware, and I believe that textiles can challenge that perception of the future by bringing the notion of domestic into the realms of rituals and experience.

NH: Could you please explain your project Toile de Hackney? What kind of technologies are implemented into the toiles? How can the toiles be switched off and on?

CC: “Toile de Hackney” is an interactive furnishing fabric, which combines both intelligent textiles technology and traditional hand screen printing. This is inspired by the classic French “toile de Jouy” textiles, which were originally produced at Jouy en Josas (France) in the late 18th century.

“Toile de Hackney” is in effect an animated textile, which depict daily scenes of Hackney. Far from the romanticised look of the “toile de Jouy”, this contemporary print is a playful representation of daily life in Hackney. Instead of a beautiful tree and a bench, it is a tree with a pile of rubbish at the bottom. The work was generated from a personal photographic reportage that took place over a few months.

Each toile is screen printed with a combination of thermo chromic dyes and pigment dyes. The toile is laminated to a conductive textile, which is programmed to generate heat every couple minutes. The thermo chromic dyes change colour when the conductive textile is “on” and go back to their original colour when “off”. The three different “toile de Hackney” are printed on furnishing cotton, tyvek and aluminium splattered nylon.

NH: Inspired by bio mimetic principles, your current research projects focus on developing proposals for synthetic bio-textiles. Your focus has changed from smart technologies to bio mimicry principles. Why is this the case?

CC: I started looking more and more into bio mimicry simply because nature achieves incredible and magical interactive performances without using nasty chemicals or energy. Working with smart textiles in a conventional way is a good way to test out hypotheses of the future, but too often smart textiles are power hungry and difficult to recycle or disassemble. Sustainability is a key concern for me. A few years ago I saw Janine Benuys at a conference and was extremely encouraged by her work and this seems to be the way forward in terms of smart but sustainable design. I am currently working on various bio mimicry inspired projects:

Bio surfaces and smart pop up textiles: This project explores “pop up” techniques for the development of smart textile surfaces and furniture that will change shape in reaction to ambient environmental changes, e.g. temperature change, UV exposure. This project is currently investigating the potential use of organic photovoltaic in the context of bio mimicry principles.

Suicidal Textiles: I have also completed a project called „suicidal textiles“ as part of the Nobel textiles project which was presented at the ICA in September 2008 in London. This is mimicking a natural process but without using smart technologies.

The design concept is inspired by the process of programmed cell death; deliberate cell suicide, which enables organs and limbs to develop. This process is crucial to the shape and function of every organism. I chose to echo this principle in a collection of garden furniture and textiles that will evolve with time. The final forms will only be revealed at the end of the “apoptosis” process, using biodegradable (natural) and durable (synthetic) materials. Portions of the furniture and textiles will slowly biodegrade to reveal different final forms. The process of biodegradation will also support C. elegans, which feeds on the bacteria that live in soil and compost.

Carole Collet Textile Designer Carole Collet is course director MA Textile Futures and researcher at Central Saint Martins College, London. She set up the course in 2001 and has been working on implementing future thinking for resilient design in the textile design discipline since. “Poetic Textiles for Smart Homes” is a design quest, which aims at developing innovative textiles for the domestic market: How can textiles take a leading role in redefining our design, perception and experience of the domestic space? How can textiles reconnect the notion of history, craft, ecology with intelligent technologies and materials thus redefining the role of textiles within an overpowering architectural context? In her design process Carole explores a combination of new technologies (intelligent textiles, new materials) together with more traditional and low-tech methods of production to generate new “hybrid” designs. Carole has been contributing worldwide on the subject of future textiles, sustainable design practice, climate change and the role of science in design. Her work has been exhibited at the Science Museum, the ICA and the V&A and she has contributed to exhibitions worldwide. www.carolecollet.com