Research and Enterprise

E-Static Shadows

A group of international researchers, practitioners and scientists is working on a research project 'E-Static Shadows' funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. This group is supervised by Prof. Janis Jefferies, Director of CHRRC and led by Dr Zane Berzina, Research Fellow at CHRRC and Main Investigator on the project.

The 'E-Static Shadows' pilot project intends to explore the speculative arena of electrostatic and its possible readings in relation to human interactions within physical space in order to advance the design knowledge of interactive environments. It studies the possible translations of electrostatic energy into other types of energy such as light, sound and motion using specially engineered intelligent textile systems as mediators and displays for these processes. It is intended that new interactive textiles systems which are capable of sensing static electricity and translate it into audio-visual patterns on the surface of the fabric will be developed.

Main collaborators of the project are Jackson Tan, Architect and Designer from the Insquare Lab, London and Dr Andreas Neudeck with a team from the Textile Research Institute Thuringia-Vogtland in Germany. Other Collaborators are Dr Andres Melo, Researcher and Lecturer in Computing, Goldsmiths College and a member of Goldsmiths Digital Studios as well as Dr Natalie Stingelin-Stutzmann, Research Fellow at Queen Mary University of London, Department of Materials. It is planned that the research project will be publicly disseminated at the Dana Centre, Science Museum London in 2009.