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Ep 5. Indigo-Dyed Fabric Migration and Thinking Through Making with Mika Satomi
320 Plays11 months ago
In this episode of The No Ordinary Cloth Podcast, we hear from Mika Satomi - an exceptional artist and maker whose artistic approach transcends mediums. She skilfully blends traditional and modern, digital and manual techniques and materials to convey powerful narratives. She is as proficient in weaving and crocheting as she is in programming and electronics and so many other techniques. Here she shares about her approach to learning new skills and deepening her existing ones.
She is known as a pioneer in the E-textiles community and most people would know her through Kobakant - How to get what you want - a resource for e-textile materials and techniques, that she and Hannah Perner-Wilson built. But Today, Mika joins us to discuss her latest project, Indigo Hyphae, a reflection on the topic of human migration. She explores traditional Japanese katazome techniques along with indigo dyeing techniques, going totally analogue this time, marking a shift from her usual e-textiles work.
Mika shares about her experience of teaching at art universities, her collaboration with Hannah Perner-Wilson, and their project Kobakant. She also touches on the role and responsibility we have as makers and the impact it has on the world. This discussion will leave you contemplative of your own practise and skills.
Join us as we explore the journey of this pioneering, deeply creative and thought provoking artist.
Mika Satomi's works
Zeug Farberai - Indigo dyeing studio
Kobakant - How to get what you want
Connect with Mili Tharakan
Insta: @noordinarycloth
Time stamp of episode:
- 00:19 Getting to Know Mika Satomi
- 05:17 Introduction to the Indigo Hyphae Project
- 07:31 The Concept and Inspiration Behind Indigo Hyphae
- 10:05 The Process and Techniques of Indigo Hyphae
- 20:26 Reflections on Craftsmanship and Skill Acquisition
- 34:43 Exploring E-Textiles
- 36:05 The Impact of Collaboration and Kobakant
- 43:40 The Responsibility of Designers
- 48:17 The Impact of Teaching on Personal Growth
- 01:02:14 Reflections on the Interview
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the No Ordinary Cloud podcast, where we stitch together a tapestry of fashion and textile innovations one episode at a time. This is your host, Millie Therakin, and hope you're all off to a wonderful start this new year.
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm particularly thrilled about our guest today, Mika Satomi. She is someone I greatly admire and have known for over 12 years now. She's many things, but for the sake of this introduction, I would say she's an artist, a researcher, a maker, and a wonderful teacher. If you have ever attended a workshop or class run by her, you will know what I mean. She has the gift of teaching and a deep desire to share knowledge freely and openly.
Mika's Artistic Journey and Techniques
00:00:49
Speaker
As an artist, she's someone who's not defined or contained by a particular medium. She lets her message or idea guide the materials and techniques that she chooses. And very often, these are a combination of techniques that are both old and new digital analog and manual techniques that she blends together powerfully to tell a story.
00:01:11
Speaker
I've never known anyone else who has the agility to experiment, learn and so seamlessly bring together a range of skills, be it weaving, printing, programming, knitting, electronics, sewing, dyeing and so much more.
00:01:26
Speaker
If she wants to make something, she will figure it out and you'll hear a lot more about that in this podcast. She is a brilliant mind and a beautiful person. So I can't wait to share this episode with you. Mika is closely associated with the e-textiles or electronic textile community. And she is a pioneer in the space.
00:01:45
Speaker
But in our conversation today, we are talking about a completely analog project where she learned and used Japanese katizome resist technique with Indigo dying to create her latest project reflecting on the very current and important topic of migration.
00:02:03
Speaker
Before we dive in, I had a little request. I have attached a link to a short two minute survey in the show notes. I would love to hear from you, know what topics you're interested in and what you learn and enjoy about this podcast. I would deeply appreciate it if you could take time out to share your thoughts and help me shape this podcast for 2024.
Culinary Memories and Cultural Adaptation
00:02:26
Speaker
Now, without further ado, let's dive right in to hear what Mika has to share.
00:02:32
Speaker
Mika Satomi, thank you so much for joining us today. I'm so excited to interview you. One, because you do such incredible breadth of work in textiles, but two, because you're such a dear friend and there's nothing better than chatting with a dear friend and just learning. So welcome to the No Ordinary Cloth podcast, and we are going to dive into a few questions and get to know you about yourself and your work today.
00:02:58
Speaker
I know you love food and you're fabulous at cooking. What are some of your favorite food while growing up? I do remember as a child, I didn't particularly like traditional food or particularly fish and vegetables, but as I was growing up, I did enjoy very much eating fish and seafood and also like particular types of vegetables. And I still do enjoy them very much. And you love cooking them as well, don't you?
00:03:26
Speaker
Yes, I do. I do. And it's a little bit sad living in Europe. I can't really find the ingredients that I would need to cook Japanese. So I tend to do some European version of Japanese cooking. And while you were growing up, what did you dream of becoming?
Career Transition from Design to Art and Technology
00:03:47
Speaker
I didn't really have that sort of big wish or a big role model or so. I think more or less
00:03:55
Speaker
What I do now just came by following what was just at the moment available or what happened then or what someone else said, why don't you do this? Or just by chance doing something. And I didn't think when I was young, I didn't think that I would be doing what I do now. For your undergrad, you did graphic design and illustration. Is that right? Exactly. So that was.
00:04:22
Speaker
I wanted to go to art school and that was the only option I had because my father wasn't a big fan of the idea of me studying fine art. And that was a middle ground that I could convince him. Good compromise. Yeah, exactly. And then you did your master's as well. Is that right? In Japan? I did work in between. So I did graduate and then eventually I worked in
00:04:52
Speaker
design companies. Then I learned about art and technology. It was a kind of new study field back then. And I get to know a professor who was teaching this in this new school that was only for master study for technology and art. And I applied for the school. And that was the start of me getting into doing technology within the art
Analog Projects and Indigo Dyeing Exploration
00:05:17
Speaker
field. Let's get into the project itself that you're working on right now.
00:05:21
Speaker
You did a collaboration on an artistic project called Indigo Hyphy. And it is such a beautiful project, Mika. I was just going through the gallery, such beautiful fabrics, textiles that you made there. And there's so many layers of meaning and thinking that's gone behind it. Could you tell us a bit about this project just from the beginning? What is it about and what was your creative process?
00:05:45
Speaker
So the background of the whole thing is that I usually work with electronics and textiles or e-textiles, which involves a lot of technology and technology building, e-textile building, programming, and so on, and I got a bit sick of it, to be honest. And I wanted to do something that is analog, that doesn't concern, does it work? No. Yes, the big question.
00:06:14
Speaker
Exactly. Will it work? Does it work? So I wanted to make something away from it. I wanted to do something that is textile and textile without E part of it. And then I got a chance to do a project with Tlök Faberlei in Upper Austria. And Tlök Faberlei is open source indigo dye workshop that is like a community based. So they are not a commercial studio, but it's a kind of fabla of the fabric.
00:06:43
Speaker
Yeah, and it's run by many people, but one of the core members is Yannina Bickshider, who is a long-term friend of mine. And recently there was a call and there was a chance to work with them in artistic projects. So I applied for it. And then when we were applying or like when we were planning to do the project, my big wish was I don't want to do anything with electronics. I want to do just textile thing. And I want to explore what this technique that they have been
00:07:11
Speaker
using, which is indigo dye with resist print, can do in artistic projects. So this was my kind of setting and starting point. And the project was a commission for Festival de Arrigionen, which is a kind of regional artistic festival. And the topic for this year was train stations or train. Yeah. So then like from there I started to think about, okay, so what does it mean in a bigger sense, not just a train, but
00:07:39
Speaker
this kind of like, people moving and moving around. And one of the things that inspired me was this recent discussions about people from other places coming in and then how this kind of discussion or like mood and atmosphere is built up, not everyone, I would say, but in some regions and among some people about kind of resistance to the people who are coming in. And then part of it is this kind of changing your culture or
00:08:09
Speaker
How do you keep the tradition? And I felt a need to think about it. And especially indigo dyeing technique is often considered as a traditional technique. I wanted to think about it. So what is this concept of traditional culture, traditional technique? How do I understand it? And my understanding for this was that techniques of any kind of makings is always moving. Absolutely. It's not traditional per se.
00:08:38
Speaker
if you if you look at indigo dying this moved around no one can claim this is mine like indigo dying started
00:08:47
Speaker
in Egypt or in South America, I actually don't even know where is the first one that you can say it's the first one. But it happened in the different parts of the world. And then, of course, there is the places that indigo plants can grow. And then there are places where indigo plants does not grow, but then they probably imported or got these indigo plants and then further developed some technique. But then also these techniques moved around.
00:09:12
Speaker
So some people had a really good idea of how you can print it in a certain way or how you can dye it in a certain way or how you can make patterns in a certain way. And then this kind of crossbreed as the people brought this fabric to different parts or maybe even the actual people who knew the technique moved to somewhere.
Sustainability and Cultural Fusion
00:09:32
Speaker
And then this technique makes a hybrid with the other technique that was more practice in the region and so on. So what we see and what we call as traditional technique and traditional culture today, traditional way of making traditional fabric.
00:09:47
Speaker
It's a mix of everything and it has been moving and I think it should be moving. So I felt like almost doing these things is also a manifestation of accepting and celebrating these elements of the people and mixing of the culture. So that was my starting point. And what I did in the project was I purposely brought in the indigo die or indigo resist printing technique from Japan called Patazome.
00:10:15
Speaker
And doing it in Austria, where they don't do katazomi, but with the materials and tools that is available there. And it was also inspired by the practice of Tsoik Faberai, because the traditionally used, reduced material in that region is, it's not, I don't say sustainable, but it's not the best material that you can put in the normal drain water.
00:10:41
Speaker
If you have the system to filter the water, it's not a problem. But it has a copper inside and therefore if you don't have these systems, you don't want to put it. And therefore they didn't want to use this system, this resist material system that is usually used in the region. But instead they looked for another material that would not contain something that would.
00:11:04
Speaker
pollute the the drain water. One of the things they looked in was the Japanese techniques but it's not the technique itself but this material that they used to cover the white part of the dye. So this resist print dye. So they adapted the recipe quite a bit to fit to their their indigo bath and then also temperature where you're printing and also the materials that is available here because one of the main
00:11:32
Speaker
material of this this resist is rice bran and the rice bran is a waste material in Japan and it's everywhere because rice is one of the main crop but here you don't find it so they had to look for the ways to to either source it or to find the kind of alternative material for it
00:11:53
Speaker
They ended up like they tried different things and it actually didn't work. So they ended up looking for one that is in Europe. It's a rice bran, but for host food. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's very interesting. So they already figured that part out. So when I was thinking of, okay, I would really like to bring in another technique or another practice of indigo time.
00:12:15
Speaker
Here I thought, okay, then I also bring not only this resist material, but actually printing technique they use in Japan with this kind of resist. So that's what I
Public Engagement and Fabric Collection
00:12:25
Speaker
did. The main part of the project was to develop the whole system of from making resist to the printing with the material that is available there. And then also technique that is easy to access.
00:12:39
Speaker
using also kind of DIY techniques and DIY materials that is available there and open source document everything. So that was one part of the project. The other part of the project is then I produced a lot of fabric using this technique and I gave it away. So I wanted people to, I don't know, do something with them. So I wanted to come on to that actually, because just for the listeners to understand, can you describe these fabrics?
00:13:06
Speaker
In this project, I've produced maybe like 250 pieces of indigodile fabric. Wow. Yeah, it was really a lot. And each of them were printed with this catasome and the motif was something that I found or like my memories of living in the region. So I used to live in that region of Upper Austria.
00:13:29
Speaker
And oftentimes I spend time helping my friend doing work in the farm or in the garden, making vegetables. And I spent many times walking in the woods looking for mushrooms. So those were kind of my first good memories of the region. And I felt like, yeah, why not trying to make a pattern with these? So I made a lot of
00:13:50
Speaker
catasomy patterns of different vegetables that you find in the region or commonly grown in the region. Lots of mushroom patterns that you find in the region and I also made a few patterns of snails with house and without houses.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, because there are a lot of those in that region. And so these 200 plus 250 fabrics were printed with these katasome patterns or these vegetables and mushroom patterns. All of them are different because these patterns were just like one vegetables, like one motif, and we printed
00:14:29
Speaker
a few of them together. So the layers were every time different. Therefore, none of the fabric was the exact color. So these 200 something fabrics were then hung at the train stations. We used four different stations along the same Somarau train line. Okay, right. And during the festival, so the idea was that you could take a train and then you see these indigo fabrics
00:14:55
Speaker
hanging in each of these train stations. So you see them kind of almost waving or waiting on the train stations. And you as an audience were invited to pick the fabric that you like and take it home. Okay.
00:15:10
Speaker
Take one or take two, I feel like. And, and then there was an instruction. You can take it home, but when you take it home, please post one photos of the fabric in your space or in your region or like in where you would use it or landmark in that region. So you should stay at anonymous. I don't want your identity, but I wanted to see what you would, what you would do with them or where you take these indigo hyphus.
00:15:36
Speaker
These photos were then uploaded to the map so you could see how these fabric started to spread from these regions of the festival to other parts of Austria or in Europe or in the world. So that was the project. Amazing. And I checked that map. It was incredible to see. Went out to Sweden, parts of Germany, Hungary, I think as well.
00:15:59
Speaker
So it's just lovely to see that map. I felt like the textiles, you know, sort of migrated to all these places. And it's funny because when you explained your thinking behind where this project started, that's exactly what you were sort of exploring as well of people migrating and moving around and finding new homes. And although I didn't quite realize that, you know, I was thinking it's just wonderful to see these textiles find new homes and
00:16:23
Speaker
Yeah, that blue dot on the map is quite powerful, actually. What were you sort of expectations from that map? What were you hoping to see? Yeah, I really wanted to say literally what you said, like I wanted to see these dots spreading and this.
00:16:38
Speaker
Indigo hyphae, by the way, the hyphae is as kind of like singular, not mushrooms, but, you know, this fiber of the mushrooms. So when you sit under the ground, there is not the mushroom, but there's not this, the body of the mushroom spreading. So mycelium is the body, right? And then a hyphae is the hair or like this hand of the mushroom that is growing. So these are the hyphae of the indigo.
00:17:06
Speaker
And they were waiting in the train stations and then they are now migrating. Like the mushrooms walk through the woods, walk through the mountains, it moves from one place to the other.
00:17:17
Speaker
So that was my image of this project. The map is a bit of like my wish of visualizing or like, it's not even visualizing because I have no control over it. When people post it, then you see the dots. Did people take most of the fabrics or do you still have some with you? It was quite quickly gone.
00:17:36
Speaker
Oh, I can imagine. They were so beautiful, Mika. Of course everyone was going to, you know, can imagine as you come into a train station and these gorgeous indigo fabrics just sort of dancing in the wind and you're invited to just take one. Just that act of taking one of that and taking it away with you is very powerful.
00:17:55
Speaker
Yeah, it was interesting because when, as I was making, I wasn't sure if people want to have them. No, it could ended up that. Okay. I ended up with like huge amount of fabric. I don't know what to do with. So I really wasn't sure. I mean, India was dying is really a time consuming process. So the ones that I made and by the way, so you could take a piece and the one piece is maybe like
00:18:22
Speaker
50 centimeter by 100 or something like that. It was quite big piece. And for each process I could do, I think, 16 pieces.
00:18:34
Speaker
at the time, it takes eight times of time, which of dipping. Wow. And that means four hours of process. So every day I did, I don't know how many hours more than eight, I did two cycles per day. That means I could make 32 per day.
00:18:53
Speaker
And you made more than 250 Mika. I mean, this is something I've noticed in many of our projects, your ability to just persevere and repeat a process. I think that's something I think you really enjoy is to repeat and repeat and repeat until it just becomes a part of you. It's a skill that you've grown into in that process. Is that right? You're right. I do really enjoy this kind of repetition works. Yeah.
00:19:21
Speaker
But I think that's the hand works and the craft works, no? Absolutely. You do repeat.
00:19:30
Speaker
The physicality of it, the physical work of it is really rewarding at the same time. It's hard, but it's rewarding. And this was exactly that. I was not soldering, I was not programming, but I was dying. It was printing and dying, which is very physical. And then you spend a whole day standing physical work and then you get this fabric, 32 of it. Right.
00:19:56
Speaker
Yeah. But as I was making these, and then this is quite physical work, and I wasn't sure I would want to have these things. So when I started the first day of the festival, and when people went crazy taking all these things, I was surprised. And then I thought, oh, I should have maybe thought about it, so they just don't run out of it on the first day. But on the other hand, I was really happy that people actually wanted to take them.
00:20:25
Speaker
Yeah, lovely. I think one of the things, I mean, I've known you for over 10 years now, Mika. I just realized that. And one thing I've greatly admired about you is your ability to learn new skills, you know, all sorts of skills, whether it's to do with textile skills like crochet, weaving, now dyeing, printing or hardware skills or coding skills, whatever it may be, you're sort of able to quite
00:20:51
Speaker
fluidly move between different tools and techniques. You make it look really easy, but I know it's not because you spend hours like this working on something again and again and again and really honing it in. Yeah. And you have this incredible ability to take tools and techniques and methods and processes from different places and creating a version of your own with all of that. Could you share a bit about the skills that you learned through this project and what techniques had to be brought together to make this project happen?
00:21:19
Speaker
Maybe I start answering your first part of the comments about learning techniques and skills. I always feel like, or when I do that, I think of this one scene from Matrix, you know, the Matrix stuff. Maybe not everyone nowadays have seen it. I'm old enough to know about it. Yeah, exactly.
00:21:41
Speaker
So in this film, there is this one scene that one of the character needs to fly in a helicopter in this virtual world. And then she calls in to the operator and say, operator, helicopter, da, da, da, da, da. And then the operator just puts the floppy disk. And then instantly she knows how to fly a helicopter. Right. Yeah. Always feel a bit like that, except it's not the floppy disk and it's not instant that I can learn.
00:22:09
Speaker
I wish I could do that, but I feel like I'm just kind of inserting, I need this and I'm kind of putting myself to insert this skill set floppy disk on me. But on the other hand, I feel like therefore my skills are very shallow.
00:22:25
Speaker
Doing this project I want to do this and then I need this part of how to do it so I don't go to the flying school and I don't learn all this thing about how to fly a helicopter but I just get this floppy disk just part that I need and sometimes I feel therefore
00:22:41
Speaker
I'm missing things. I really admire the people who have actually gone through and practiced years to do that skill that I'm kind of mimicking in a very deep and good way. I have to say that, you know, thank you for saying good thing about me just grabbing these one after another different things, but I do enjoy learning these things and I do enjoy trying different skills, but I sometimes do feel lack of depth in these things I do.
00:23:11
Speaker
in terms of like skills and just dexterity of hand, for example. And this was also a little bit of the feeling I had with this project. So for this project, I needed to learn how to do all this indigo dye related techniques and knowledge. I mean, indigo dyeing is really super deep craft knowledge and a big body of knowledge that you need.
00:23:38
Speaker
I just really did the floppy disk way. And I must say, and I really thank for Inina from Soyk Faberai because she has been doing this for years. So she really supported me and like invited me to transfer her knowledge to me without hesitation. So all this like understandings of how Indigo is behaving. So when you are dyeing the fabric, the bath is a kind of chemical reaction and it's a living thing. So.
00:24:07
Speaker
It may work one day and it may not work the other day. So you have to always read the bath that the indigo bath water to see what they need. Do they need more of chemical that you put it to the higher Paha or it needs more air circulation or it doesn't want the air circulation. It's too cold. It's too warm. All these things. And then you can do something the day before so that it works in the next day because this chemical reactions takes time.
00:24:37
Speaker
So you need to understand how to read the bath. And this is something you can't just learn overnight. This is a result of experience. So it was really interesting to be exposed to that. I can't read the bath, but I learned what they are doing and what they are reading and what's the kind of place to look at. And I had a glance of it.
00:25:00
Speaker
and this was really interesting. And all these techniques around printing, I had to learn it. It's different from silk screen printing. Again, you just try it, you continue doing it, and then you just start to get better at it. Yeah, those were the two skills I can say that it was really new and it was really interesting to learn. This motif pattern
00:25:24
Speaker
that I had. These were kind of my experiments and normally the katazomis, the real katazomis in Japan, this is hand-cut and itself is a long process and this requires a lot of skills. But I wanted to do this part
00:25:39
Speaker
in more this kind of modern, not modern way, but kind of this plus technology way. So I've used the CNC plotter, so computerized plotter. So I had this image that I drew, and then this was converted into digital data. And then I cut everything with the machine. But then still, we had to figure out the lot of how do you turn this cut
00:26:05
Speaker
material into a stencil. It's a stencil with a screen on it. And it's a really interesting technique because in Japan, it is traditional technique that is practiced by craftsmen for this very high art. But also there's a lot of DIY versions of it because silk screen, you can't really do at home or like, you know, you need a lot of equipment to do it at home. But this technique, if you just need a cotton eye,
00:26:32
Speaker
So a lot of people do it as also as DIY technique, the easier versions one. So I really like this kind of variety from this high craft to DIY home technique. And I wanted to kind of make in between of those. Yeah. So this was not the skill I learned, but kind of experiments and explorations I made.
00:26:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's interesting that you feel like you're always, you know, that floppy disk version of a technique or a skill. But, you know, I think there's so much value and power in both, like going really deep as these high craftsmen do in
00:27:11
Speaker
regions around the world. There is thousands and thousands of hours being an indigo dire or a weaver or whatever it is. And it reminds me of a story of when I went to this craft village in India to someone who does indigo dying. And he had been doing it since he was like 10 years old or something. And he was in his sixties when I met him.
00:27:33
Speaker
And we were asking him, you know, like you said, that bath, it's like a little living creature by itself. And you really have to look after it and learn it and read the bath. And we used to ask him, like, how do you know what kind of blue you're getting and how do you control all that? And he said, he used to taste the bath, taste a little bit. And then he knew what needed to be done to that bath to get what he wanted it to.
00:27:57
Speaker
And I think that is something you can only gain over years and years and hours and hours and hours of experience. And there's so much value in that, but at the same time, there is so much value in what you do is to understand the concept of what is being done and to translate that and then bring it together with all of these other techniques like CNC cutting, making it, making it much more accessible to sort of a different group of people to play with and experiment with.
00:28:23
Speaker
And in that process, that craft is evolving into another form. You know, earlier you talked about how it's so important that we realize traditional wasn't a static thing, whether it's indigo, whether it's food, whether it's a technique, it keeps evolving. And that's how new things have developed in the world. And we might recognize something as, Oh, that's a traditional Indian weave or technique.
00:28:51
Speaker
But it sort of traveled from somewhere else and there was so much exchange of knowledge. And I think that's the richest thing that we as humans have is knowledge that we exchange and mix to make new knowledge. And I think you do that so, so fluidly and so aesthetically in transitioning between all these different techniques and creating like a new craft by itself.
00:29:12
Speaker
That's how I see your work. Talking about craftsmen, I know as part of this project, you were also reading the book, The Unknown Craftsman, one of my favorite books as well. And you mentioned that you were interested in the idea of the nameless craftsman that is mentioned in that book as a concept. Could you expand a bit more about this thinking and how this idea filtered into the project and how this book inspired the project?
00:29:36
Speaker
Yes, actually, I wrote in this book or I thought of this book exactly because you mentioned it many, many years ago. Really? And when I started to do this project, I was a bit stuck with the question of what do I print?
00:29:53
Speaker
And then I was exploring, okay, what kind of pattern can I do? What motif to take? Should it be something meaningful? And then I started to read this book. And then there the writer talks about the pattern exactly of the craft objects. And he talks about, yeah, the pattern is something of every day. And by just people practicing and just applying this motif and patterns,
00:30:20
Speaker
again and again these shapes become so not perfect but kind of like you know these edges that you don't need goes away by just being practiced many times it gets much tighter and the motifs they pick
00:30:34
Speaker
is something from the everyday. You see a bamboo, bamboos are everywhere and then this bamboos make it to the motif for the dish that you use for every day. So it's being used as an everyday object. It's not something that you put on the wall and just look at it, but it's something that you use.
00:30:54
Speaker
And then therefore you take something from what you find beautiful from your everyday surrounding. And the other thing he talks about this, no bamboo looks like the bamboo pattern that you see on the dishes. But still, you do recognize this is bamboo.
00:31:10
Speaker
So this becomes kind of this meta language or like, you know, this meta form of something that you know every day that's kind of decorates or that has a little charm to your everyday life. That's like how I understood what he talks about, the pattern. And that affected me a lot to decide the pattern being vegetables and mushrooms. That was kind of my response to that, reading that book.
00:31:37
Speaker
and that chapter. So that was one of the inspiration I got from the book and then also that kind of comes to this topic of namelessness. So it wasn't these patterns and these motifs and not about my personal thinking or my personality
00:31:57
Speaker
manifesting to this particular shape or aesthetic. And then I find it really interesting as a concept to actually stay nameless. So it wasn't about me, it was about practice and doing and what the others think about or what the others then do something. So these fabrics I gave, probably people don't remember who it was, but the fabric stays with them. That's something I wanted.
00:32:23
Speaker
So it wasn't me and then some people asked if I want to sign this fabric and exactly I didn't want it to sign this because it didn't occur to me that oh I should do something sign or mark the fabric as mine
00:32:37
Speaker
Oh, that's beautiful, Mika. I mean, so counter-cultural. And I think that also just frees you in a way, isn't it, to create without that pressure of like, oh, this is, I love how you said a manifestation of your personality into an artwork is just so much pressure. Whereas this just frees you to just create and enjoy that process of making and sending it out into the world.
00:33:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, or like, you know, you can't use always dishes with all the names. Everything has the names of this and that, no? Exactly. Yeah. So now I'd love to sort of move on from this project and learn a little more about YumiCup. So you mentioned you started off in Japan at some point along the way you moved to Austria. So what brought you to Austria then? Okay. So this was also by like my supervisor.
00:33:29
Speaker
is an Austrian person and she moved to Austria to become a full professor. And I was a bit desperate that she just, she was gone. But then she established an exchange student program between her school in Austria and our school in Japan.
Discovery and Growth in E-Textiles
00:33:46
Speaker
And I was the first exchange student. Yeah. So that was my, my way into Austria or to Europe. Okay. Which school was this in Austria? This is Linz Art University.
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah, this is also a technology art. So Linz is medium-sized city in Austria. And they are host of Arts Electronica Festival, which is quite a known festival for art and technology. And therefore, they have a lot of background or interest in technology and art. And the university just started this new program
00:34:19
Speaker
called interface culture back then. And that's where I studied. And interesting thing is they didn't say it's technology art only, but they called it as an interface culture. So this was kind of more broader sense to understand what you can do with technology in artistic design context.
00:34:37
Speaker
And that was actually, again, my last, so before that I had nothing to do with text textiles. I didn't particularly have interest in textiles either. But in, at the interface culture, there was one course called Fashion and Technology by Sabine Seymour. And there she brought a bunch of examples and materials of e-textiles. And then I learned, oh, they said things.
00:35:02
Speaker
What was it about the medium of fabrics and textiles and yarns that really drew you to it? At the beginning, actually, it didn't. When I first tried out, I didn't really have a good idea of what I wanted to do with them, but I just knew that it exists. Also happened to be that I took this course at the same time, Hannah, who is my longtime artistic
00:35:24
Speaker
a collaboration partner is also taking the course. And after the course, we were just chatting about making a massage interface because we wanted to get the free massage. And then we remember that there was such fabrics that is conductive. So we made this textile interface or like a jacket that contains this ETX style materials that is push buttons.
00:35:48
Speaker
And when you wear it, then you are pushing the buttons of the game controller. Oh, right. Of a video game. Yeah, exactly. Amazing. That was our first project together. And that was one of the fun project I did with e-textiles. That definitely does sound fun. Yeah. Yeah. And what was probably my big luck was that I met Hannah. Oh, I worked with Hannah in this project and she's really good in making research on materials and making research on.
00:36:18
Speaker
prototypes. So not only the result or like what we have ended up using and doing with this massage me jacket project, but also we had a lot of exploration and experiments with like what kind of other things you could do with these textile materials. And she also got a lot of sample yarns and sample sweats and these things that we didn't use. And so we got a lot of different ideas with this one project and that kind of hooked me in.
00:36:47
Speaker
So now that you got hooked, how did you sort of deepen your skills? Where did you start? Because there's so many directions you can go in with textiles, isn't it? So many techniques. Where did you start and how did you build up your skills in making textiles? Yeah. Well, so in the beginning, I must confess. So in the beginning, when I started to collaborate with Hannah.
00:37:10
Speaker
She did much more of the textile works and I did much more of circuitry and programming works just because I was not really good with textiles work. And Hannah was much more skillful in sewing and doing textile things. Yeah, I didn't really have skills, I must say. But then like as we continued experimenting and then some point I started to also try out like crochet
00:37:39
Speaker
a little bit or knitting a little bit and so on. And I watched a lot of YouTube videos how to do things. Then you kind of come to this kind of first step point of like you could maybe crochet round shapes or knit simple scarf or something like that. So that could have been my maximum point actually. But then I also had another luck, which was I met Linda Warbin from Swedish School of Textiles.
00:38:05
Speaker
And she was very kind to invite me for a workshop and later on to offer a position at the Swedish School of Textiles where a lot of people know how to do textile things. And also there was a lot of courses offered, there was a lot of equipment available for you. So being in the Swedish School of Textiles for two years as a researcher really opened up my mind and skill sets, like access to the skill set. And that's also where I met you. Yeah.
00:38:33
Speaker
Oh, that's incredible. I didn't realize that that's where you really learned a lot of the textile skills. That's fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where we met. We'll get into that a bit later as well. Would you have any people in your life who might have been sort of your role models or mentors or someone who really inspired you and encouraged you in your work, your career, would you share a bit about that? Wow. I find this question really difficult.
00:39:02
Speaker
And my immediate answer is no, I don't have role models. But I think I was really lucky to meet Hannah, my Kovacant colleague. And that really changed my way of thinking, my way of doing. And this whole journey of Kovacant has been a big ride for me. So, I mean, she's not my role model, but a big impact.
00:39:28
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. And, and someone who sort of, I guess you push each other in ways and grow together, isn't it? You inspire and influence and inform each other through Copacant and all the other projects that you've, you've worked together. Yes. And I think I'm really lucky to have colleague like her, because I noticed a lot of times when we are doing project and just, just now we are doing another one project together.
00:39:54
Speaker
Like instead of talking to yourself, you talk to each other and that's such an impact. So for example, Indigo Haifei was my solo project and recently I did some project without her and I see such a big difference in process when I have someone to bounce an idea with or I'm just
00:40:16
Speaker
doing this internally as monologue and of course I can talk about if it's my own like you know my solo project I can talk with other people with my friend about the project and you know it's also bouncing back but what is different is to have a creative partner you are in the same
00:40:34
Speaker
stake. It's not that the other person is being a listener, but we are in this together and that is a strength that I feel. Absolutely. We briefly touched upon Cobacant. Can you just explain that a little bit more for our listeners? Yeah, true. So Cobacant is an artist collective of me and Hannah Pernod Wilson.
00:40:55
Speaker
Hannah is this person that I did this massage me jacket together. How many years ago? 15 years ago. Since that project, we formed the collective and we have been working together. And of course we had our life in between. So she went to study in the US. In the meantime, I had this opportunity to work at the Sweden. So we were not together all the time. We were not doing projects all the time, all the whole year round, but we managed to collaborate at least once a year on one project.
00:41:25
Speaker
on e-textiles and since a long time, we have been collaborators. And also as a part of the KobaCon practice, we started in 2009 documenting what we have explored or what we found in e-textiles as a database. And this practice has been going on since then with her. We slowed down a little bit the last years, but still like we are documenting our findings or small projects in this database still.
00:41:55
Speaker
Well, that database is so powerful, Mika, because anyone who's ever tried to make anything in e-textiles has used that database to find where to get materials, to learn techniques.
Responsibility in Sharing Knowledge and Creativity
00:42:08
Speaker
You've been so generous, both of you, in sharing that knowledge that you have built over experiments you've made and mistakes you've made and all of that, and you've just shared it with the world.
00:42:19
Speaker
I think everybody knows about this database and have used it. That's definitely a huge impact you've had on the e-textile industry through this. So thank you very much for that from myself and many, many, many other people. Well, thank you for a nice comment. Can I go back a bit about talking about how to get what you want? Yes, yes, of course. Yeah. So you mentioned about how to get what you want as
00:42:47
Speaker
database that's maybe inspired or contributed to people who are working with e-textiles or starting to work with e-textiles. And I'm really happy to hear that. And part of our motivation to start this or keep this website and documentation was we wanted to see what other people do.
00:43:07
Speaker
so we have been doing this electronic textile things ourselves and for that we also learned from other people how to do this and that like you know how to crochet and so on and then you discover
00:43:21
Speaker
how to do some things but then you can do only the things you can do and by sharing the information the others start to do things so like you know you get more variation of it that you couldn't possibly explore so that was like really amazing to see that people started to do things that i never thought of but on the other hand we in especially recent years we are aware of the problems of producing more and
00:43:50
Speaker
making more, designing more. And then I started to also question myself for what I'm doing, because I do also promote this idea of making and developing new things. And then that's something I've been kind of questioning myself of how do I understand this thing? Because it's not about stopping.
00:44:10
Speaker
I think and it's not about I'm wanting to stop you to make something but there's I feel like we need to also talk about not only how to do something but the understandings of the risks and stakes you are taking and and yeah just also the understandings of
00:44:32
Speaker
the negative effect of these techniques and materials too and also how one could kind of find the balance between being creative and doing interesting things but also how do I take responsibility
00:44:48
Speaker
in the society and in today's world about these objects that you create and materials that you use. So yeah, so those are things that I have been keep thinking also with the idea that I'm open sourcing the information. It was recently I was teaching at art university in design department and I was very not shocked surprised I would say and a nice surprise that I got
00:45:16
Speaker
from the students that now a lot of textile and product design students are really aware of this topic and questions and then almost refusing to design, designing, refusing to produce. And this encounter with these young people really made me once again think about it of like, what is my responsibility? And in a way, the situation we have today, us, this one generation before designers, so like
00:45:44
Speaker
40 plus people being designers, we do have responsibility over what it is now. And then talking with the people who are becoming designers now, I really wonder, okay, what is my take? What is our take for this talk? Right. It's such an important question. Yeah. And we can think about it and we shouldn't stop thinking about it, but it's not something that you have an answer and then that's it.
00:46:08
Speaker
or there's no answer and just feel bad and don't think about it. We have to think about it. And wrestle with it. Yeah. You're right. My next question was to talk about some of your e-textile work. That was a big part of your life, you know, over sort of 15, 20 years.
Critique on E-Textile Commercialization
00:46:23
Speaker
Tell me a bit about that journey from where you sort of started looking at e-textiles through the first Massage Me jacket. And over the next sort of 15 years, you've done various projects and art installations research. And now you've come to this point, as you said earlier in the interview, like you didn't want to do any textile piece. What is your thinking there? Can you just walk us through that?
00:46:46
Speaker
Because we all change, we all evolve, we grow. So what could be that conversation in your head that you had? My journey. I guess when I started to work with EatExcels, I was quite excited about
00:47:02
Speaker
what you can do with these materials and techniques. So it was just fascinating for me to find one after another, like, oh, you can make this, you can make that type of sensors, then you can maybe apply it in this way, and then you can do this kind of project. I think in the beginning, it was kind of this expansion happened, and it was more the excitement. And also, I mean, I started these things in 2007, if you like.
00:47:31
Speaker
And this was also kind of atmosphere in the, in the society that, you know, the technology things were rather more this positive. Everyone was kind of excited about what more you can do with technology. So I kind of like ride that wave together, I think going into 2010s and so on, so on. And also this know wearable technology became a big word. And like you, I was also probably fed back in from these ideas of
00:48:00
Speaker
wearable technologies and what kind of divisions that they feed in. Not necessarily, I was always positive about it. I also had my own critique, but overall, those were kind of the atmosphere, background music of that time, probably.
00:48:18
Speaker
Then I guess at some point I started to work at the university and I also started to engage in teaching with people who are coming into the university and getting also this kind of input from young people who are also putting their own ideas in not supporting the other people's project. This was kind of an interesting shift for me. So before I was more doing my own project and my focus was kind of
00:48:44
Speaker
exploration of myself. And then as I started to teach in the universities, then I started to also kind of see the process of development from outside. And then probably I also did a little bit cool myself down from the excitement to kind of observational, like I'm seeing development process from outside. Then it was on and off. I also carried on doing my own project, but definitely having this experience
00:49:14
Speaker
shifted me a little bit on how I see these techniques and practices. Perhaps I was never really this commercially driven person, but as I was also engaging with these discussions with students in the universities, I
00:49:30
Speaker
became more critical of how do I understand the industries and the commercialization of these techniques. And I don't want to be the person who says no, no, no, no, no to everything in every month. But I think it's it's always a good to have counter argument, isn't it? Absolutely. And now I feel like this counter argument or like questioning of commercializations and this new product became much bigger voice. But I guess
00:50:01
Speaker
kind of went in more into that direction. So I was, I think in the early 2010s, there was this kind of atmosphere that, yeah, and then, you know, you should make a product or like, you know, make things that is available for the others and create divisions of what you can do with the technology. And then I didn't go into that, but I started kind of without actually making my own product. I started to question about the thing, these techniques going into production, what does it mean? And
00:50:30
Speaker
do we really want it or what is the consequence of those things and so on. So I guess my position turned more into that direction. And now that I was doing this project without E part of it, it's not necessarily a complete negation or I retire from
00:50:52
Speaker
it was just it was this point that I wanted to try out doing things without electronics and a little bit changing my medium of making and see what it does to me or like you know where does this bring me to and it was interesting because even though it wasn't e-textiles at the end I noticed a lot of ways of thinking kind of understanding the situation and project was still open source and
00:51:21
Speaker
kind of documentation and all these things that I borrowed from how the scene of DIY and e-textiles people were practicing. So I was kind of bringing in this still mindset without actual product or material of electronics and e-textiles, I guess. And I love that you're continuing to use textiles, whether it's with electronics or not. And that seems to be a medium that you go to and is sort of drawn to naturally now. Well, I have to disappoint you then.
00:51:51
Speaker
Oh no, Mika, don't tell me. What's your next project? The current project that I'm working on, it's a theater piece, it's an interactive theater, and we decided not to use textiles.
Interactive Theater Project Without Textiles
00:52:07
Speaker
Oh my goodness, you just disrupted my world, Mika. Really?
00:52:11
Speaker
Yeah, so we are making a wooden instrument, which is digital technology. But this decision of not going for textiles for more practical reasons, because it's a theatre piece that should run for at least one year. As a regular showing, it has 60 audiences.
00:52:30
Speaker
And also it is targeted for young people's theatre. So the audience are also, I mean, they are not kids, but they're young people, teenagers. And then we thought, okay, if you're making something only for actors, it could be textiles. But if you're making something for audience to interact with,
00:52:47
Speaker
and so many people touching and it should run for so long time, just wear and tears of the textiles were not something we wanted to deal with. That makes sense. And therefore we went away from thinking that we'd make something with textiles, but rather to think of interactive objects that could be robust and then still fit to the context and concept of the piece.
00:53:12
Speaker
What we are making now is a violin. It's a digitally equipped kind of fake violin and it does something like a guitar hero, but it's a violin hero.
00:53:25
Speaker
Great. Yeah. The piece is called Symphony. The setting is an orchestra rehearsal and you as an audience sit there as a musician, given this guitar hero violin so that you can play music. Oh, wow. So everyone gets to participate in this together as if you're part of the orchestra, even though you have no musical skills, maybe. Exactly. Oh, I love that. So you can do the floppy disk version of the violin.
00:53:51
Speaker
Oh my goodness. I want to participate. I can't play any instrument and I've always wanted to play one. So this is amazing. When is this performance starting and where? Premiere is on the 12th of October and it will be regularly playing. I don't know the schedule, but from there on, at least for one year, it will be playing at Theatre Strahl at the Ostkreuz in Berlin, Germany.
00:54:17
Speaker
Wow. So if anyone else listening in is in Berlin, this is the show to go to. Mika, I think some of my most special memories time with you and time with others in the e-textile community has been the legendary e-textile summer camp that you started when we were all together in Sweden.
E-Textile Summer Camp and Community Building
00:54:38
Speaker
That was the first one that you set up and then it moved to France. It's continued since, since 2012, isn't it? That was the first one. Yeah, in Sweden. Yeah.
00:54:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Great memories. What was your reason or thought for starting this e-textile summer camp? What were your expectations back then and how have you seen it evolve?
00:55:00
Speaker
Yeah, I remember making this proposal to Laj in the Swedish scope textiles within the image. And this image I found on the internet somewhere, which was like after the summer camp, this messy room with a lot of drinks and then some drunk people laying. And I sent this image with the text and saying like, yeah, these people who are practicing e-textiles, they are in different parts of the world. And we often know their works
00:55:28
Speaker
from their website or you saw it somewhere or you heard of but you don't know each other and you just don't know in person or like you never meet and of course you can you can go to conferences you can meet them officially I said yeah but you know this experience of summer camp getting drunk together eating things together and just getting to know each other that is such a strong experience and I want to create that
00:55:58
Speaker
with the people who practice e-textiles. So that was my proposal and I'm surprised that he said, yes, you can do it. Thank God he said yes, because it's been incredible. And when I was thinking about it, one of the thing was, so this was this 2012, so around these times when I think people
00:56:19
Speaker
from here and there started to work with E-Texiles. And I and Hannah were often asked to do workshops with E-Texiles. But this was like workshop for one day, two days at different venues, mostly targeting for people to get to know about E-Texiles. So it was always introduction to E-Texiles. And I felt like, well, we can do introductions and we can do introductions to each other, but I would really like to get intermediate workshops.
00:56:48
Speaker
And this was the motivation to, it was not about inviting people who are interested in e-textiles and that started together, but I wanted to meet the people who have been doing, who are giving the workshops and then plan a workshop that people who have been giving a workshop would give to the other people who already can also teach the workshop. So that becomes kind of intermediate workshops and
00:57:13
Speaker
Yeah. And then this kind of knowledge shares that is not addressed toward the people who are new to the things, but addressed to the people who already know about it. So it was a bit like, let's nerd about e-textiles. That was an idea because some people, and I know we kind of stopped.
00:57:31
Speaker
after 2017. And that was a little bit of like, I needed the pose. And I wasn't sure if it's stopping, but then the corona came. So it kind of, also there was the physical reasons why we stopped. And now I have been asked from a few people, like, are you doing it again? Is it continuing? My thinking was a bit that I felt like then it made sense to meet in that way, because there were so little people who were doing it.
00:57:59
Speaker
We wouldn't just meet someone who are doing eight exiles in the same town. And also it was necessary at the time to have such meetings. And also the people who came and who have been coming back to these meetings. But I feel like we all a little bit grew up from that.
00:58:18
Speaker
or grew out from that. And I'm not sure if it's now needed to have such meetings again in the same format. I think it would be always nice to meet each other as a friend for fun. But if you think about it as an event for the purpose and
00:58:35
Speaker
of it, I feel like maybe this is not the format we need now. And maybe if there is one, then maybe it's another people who needs to be in that. Yeah, it's not me maybe, but someone else who have another idea and someone else who are in the field in a different experience, maybe then this can evolve. But I feel like my chapter of that event is maybe last stage now.
00:59:05
Speaker
You grow, isn't it? And you need something else, not the same thing. You said you pick up skills at a sort of like a floppy disk level. What's the skill you want, one skill that you want to go really deep in?
00:59:18
Speaker
I always enjoyed weaving and at the moment it's still a floppy disk knowledge that I have and floppy disk skills I have. And I would really like to get deep dive into it and learn it much better than them. Yeah. And I think learning is one thing, but I think a lot of weaving comes from practicing and just kind of gaining that skill.
00:59:40
Speaker
set in the hand. Yeah. So that's something I would really like to do. If I remember right when I came to visit you, you do have a loom, don't you? Like a tabletop loom. I do have really good loom. I was really lucky to inherit for like, you know, my friend said, I found this loom from a school who was closing or for throwing away the things and
01:00:05
Speaker
I don't need it, so I can lend it to you. This is an arm room with a computerized shaft. So I'm really lucky to have this computerized room, but it came without the computer. So it had all these mechanisms to control, electrically control the shaft, but it didn't have actual computer and software to control that mechanism. So I built this part with Arduino. I can just make a program in processing or something and control it.
01:00:34
Speaker
I have a, yeah, it's a bit DIY. But that is so you Mika. I mean, it's great way to sort of end the conversation. That is you. You just learn to put things together and make it work and make it do what you want it to do. That I think sums you up beautifully.
01:00:50
Speaker
How to get what you want. Yeah, there we go. I would love to put the website details for your Indigo project, how to get what you want and your own personal website, if that's okay. So people can just learn more about your projects because there's so many amazing projects you've done that I think people should have a look at. So I'll put all of that in the notes.
01:01:12
Speaker
The last thing was, I know I asked you a ton of questions, but is there a question you wish I had asked you and I didn't? Is there anything you want to share? One of the things actually also I think about is programming often. I do program and I do solve
01:01:29
Speaker
Like I do develop the technology part that I need for my project myself. But I always feel that one can go so much deeper into programming and also electronics in details that I also, these are my floppy disk information and knowledge. And also I would really like to know more about skills of programming. Programming is also a craft, I would say. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. This is something that I think about.
01:01:58
Speaker
Mika, thank you so much for your time and for sharing so openly, personally. I've loved the journey that you took us on. Big thank you from me. Well, thank you too. Thank you, Mika. Bye.
01:02:14
Speaker
I have to admit that as I recorded this conversation, I forgot that this was even an interview for the podcast. It really felt like a chat I was having with her over coffee. I enjoyed it so much and I hope you did as well. And although I've known her for over a decade, there was so much more I learned about her today. I love her floppy disk analogy of her approach to learning new skills. I believe this is a real superpower to have these days, to be nimble and learn new things.
01:02:43
Speaker
This requires us to get out of our comfort zones and be committed to challenging our minds and muscles to make new connections. And here, I don't mean simply dabble in new skills, but really hone in techniques and practice it and be good at it. Anyone who knows Mika can attest to the fact that she is highly skilled and much more than she gives herself credit for. Her breadth and depth of skills across the arts, textiles, software, electronics is quite remarkable.
01:03:12
Speaker
This is an ability that I've rarely seen in others. I come away from this conversation feeling so inspired and reflective on my own skills and thinking about areas where I need to spend more time and building and refining my skills or experimenting with new ones or revisiting some practices that have become quite rusty over time.
01:03:33
Speaker
I'd like to leave you with a question today. What new skills would you like to commit to learning and practicing this year? Please do check out the links below to the Indigo Hifu project as well. We spoke about Cobra Cant on the podcast that Mika and Hannah has set up. It is one of the most valuable resources that was built for the e-textiles community. I've put the link of Cobra Cant below and don't miss out Mika's website, which has a wide range of projects and exhibitions that she has done. It's definitely worth a look.
01:04:03
Speaker
Before we end, I'd like to remind you again about the two-minute survey. You will find the link in the show notes below, and it would mean a lot to me to hear from you to find out who you are. Do you have a favorite episode on the No Ordinary Club podcast? If you do, tell me about it. Your thoughts and feedback mean the world to me as I plan for topics in 2024. Thanks again everyone for joining us today. This is your host, Meli Therakin.