Looking at the Crossmodal through the Textile Medium

Abstract

ABSTRACTRecent studies in diverse fields of the natural and social sciences address “crossmodal” activity—the integration of information from different sensory modalities—as a fundamental process for the generation of our unified perception of objects, surroundings and events, and therefore of our lived experience. Together with the growing interest in the design of multisensory systems, these studies shape a research area that invites creative practitioners to jump across disciplines to study perceptual experience with an emphasis on its crossmodal dimension. The materiality of textiles provides an exceptional metaphor for the ways in which perception comes into existence through the integral cross-linking of our sensory modalities. My practice-led research combines the textile medium with responsive design and sonic art to create possibilities for encountering, enhancing and exploring multisensory experiences. It proposes the development of a touch-sensitive, sound-generating rug that provides various levels of visual and haptic stimuli to trigger people's senses and bodily expressions, while responding to these expressions through subtle changes in the sonic output it generates. Integrally linking people's performed activity on the rug with the generated soundscape, my research practice places its focus on the integration of haptic, visual, kinesthetic and acoustic experiences. It is hoped that, as a creative and fully embodied process of investigation, the proposed approach can contribute to the diverse, interdisciplinary discourse on crossmodal perception taking place within the contemporary cultural, scientific and technological landscape.