The continuous miniaturisation and decreasing cost of electronic components have made it possible to develop computational things quite different from the devices we usually term "computers", i.e., the machines that reside at our desktops with their keyboards, mice, displays, etc. In fact, also "computers" were once machines the size of small buildings. However, computers have not only become smaller, faster and less expensive Ð this technology is also used to realise a plethora of new kinds of devices such as digital cameras, mobile phones, musical instruments and video games.
Two basic implications can be drawn from this development. The first one is that computational technology opens up a design space for everyday things that is hard, if not impossible, to grasp at this moment as the line of ever-new electronic devices never seem to stop. The second implication is that the use of computational technology is no longer restricted to certain areas of professional activity, be it office work or industrial automation. Instead, we see computational technology migrating and soon to inhabit almost any conceivable area of human conduct. We might say that we move from using computers, to living with computational things.
Mark Weiser, former chief scientist of Xerox PARC, once termed this scenario "ubiquitous computing" and set up a research agenda for investigating it (Weiser 1991). The ubiquitous computing research project initially focused on how to make computational resources available wherever and whenever people desired them, and so they developed several new kinds of devices and displays including predecessors to present PDA's (Personal Digital Assistants), tablet PCs and large wall mounted displays. Over time, Weiser and others realised that perhaps the initial questions were slightly misguiding; of course, how to make information available is important but perhaps even more so is the question of how we are going to live with all this technology (Weiser 1996).
In our research partly building on the ideas of Weiser et al., we have approached this basic question by means of thinking about computational technology as a design material, a material that, just like any other material, can be used to realise certain kinds of things (Redström 2001, cf. Dunne 1999). Instead of working with the distinction between form and function, we have based our framework on the distinction between form and material. Form is the way in which material builds the appearance of a thing. Material is what builds things. According to this basic distinction, computational technology is a material as we form it to build computational things. Computational technology as material in this sense is not only matter of computer hardware, but about all the things that make something "computational" in appearance, i.e., programs, hardware to execute them, interactive surfaces to control them, etc.
To build a computational thing, we have to combine this computational material with some other material(s) that can manifest this in space. We can compare this with music: in order to produce a perceivable result, the score has to be performed and manifested in space (in the case of musical instruments as air-pressure waves). In the case of computers, this is typically done using CRT (Cathode-Ray Tube) or LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screens, printers, keyboards, and similar devices that we have come to associate with computers. However, all of this could be different since what is central here is what makes something computational, i.e. that which depends on the execution of programs. This is where computational technology meets textile materials.
What we need in order to manifest the temporal gestalts that arise as we execute programs, is a material with strong spatial form elements and with properties that can be changed and controlled over time. Certain textile materials seem highly suitable for this purpose; just think about the precise dynamics of clothes made to move in certain ways as we move our bodies. Such textile artefacts obviously have strong spatial as well as temporal form elements. Further, we can use textile materials with dynamic properties, such as the ability to change colour, texture, shape, etc., to create new kinds of "displays" (see the design examples below for illustrations of how this can be done). Thus, if we can use the dynamics of textile materials to manifest computational processes in space by means of controlling them using computational technology, we can create new and very expressive "materials" that we can use in the design of everyday things.