What happened in January?

Q: So what happened in the first month of 2018?
A: A LOT!

Lulu v2 Proposal

We ended the last year writing up a proposal for WORTH funding to further develop the Lulu fiber optic to e-textile solution. And at the end of January we received news that our proposal made it into the second round.
>> http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/lulu-collaboration-with-maurin/

Residency #1: Rachel’s Jumpsuit Collection –> Jump North

The first week back from our winter holiday, Rachel Freire came to spend a week with us at the KOBA. While she was here she worked on her new Jumpsuit Collection, and commissioned us to produce a version one of her own Jumpsuit designs for herself. Of course we had to embed some electronics into this commission and interviewed Rachel about “what she wants”. She wants something functional and was inspired by the North Belt so ask us to embed a series of vibration motors around the waist of her Jumpsuit design that would always vibrate where north is so that she could use this as a navigation tool.
>> http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/jump-north-for-rachel/

While she was in town we also got her to present and discuss as part of our first Shoptalk event on “How do we know what we want?”
>> http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/how-do-we-know-what-we-want/

And before leaving we sat her down for a talk on the couch:
>> http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/couchtalk-with-rachel-freire/

Shoptalk #1: How do we know what we want?

Making fantasies come true
>> http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/how-do-we-know-what-we-want/
Rachel Freire (www.rachelfreire.com)
Carola Zwick (www.seven5.com)

Commissions

Business is starting slow, but surely. We completed our first commissions this last week.

Commission #1: Xavier’s Discolele

Commission #2: Rachel’s Jump North

Commission #3: A’s Handbag Light

Commission #4: Pauline’s 20’s Headband (????)

And we had quite a few people visiting us, who are “maybe” thinking of placing an order. I am slightly guessing that the February will be our busy month!

Nutrition facts

Junshen has been working on collecting data to create E-Textile Nutrition facts sheet. As a first step, he collected all the data listed on various companies datasheets in one spreadsheet. Now we are getting overview on which information is more relevant for the nutrition facts list.

Pattern Making with Ben

A pattern cutter, Ben Munday has been working us, helping us to get the pattern fit to the commissioner. Our first collaboration was to get the discolele jump suit pattern for Xavier in correct shape so it fits perfectly and have enough ease to move around during the performance.

Residency #2: Maurin’s Lulu & eTextile.org –> The Matrix Shepard

>> http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/lulu-collaboration-with-maurin/
>> http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/lulu-developments/
>> http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/ctm-vorspiel-e-textile-performances/

CTM Vorspiel Event: Wine, Cheese and E-Textiles

January 25, 19:00-
Artist Talk: Maurin Donneaud
Performance: Maurin Donneaud (www.eTextile.org)
Facil Gold (http://www.facilegold.com/#play)
http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/ctm-vorspiel-e-textile-performances/

Expert Opinions

Meet the experts: http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/category/expert-perspectives
Ann’s first column: http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/what-is-sustainability/

Happy Birthday Pauline!

“Couchtalk” Interview Series

Our couch is not only really the place we often find ourselves sitting late into the night with wine and deep in conversation between ourselves or with various guests. It also offers a picturesque setting for capturing some of these conversations to share with you. “Couchtalk” is the idea that we will make an effort to capture an interview with each of our residents and guests to talk about things that came up during their visit in front of the camera. Rachel opens the series, but unfortunately we already missed the chance to couchtalk with Maurin before he left. In future we will be more strict about this as it is a lovely way to capture and share the conversational atmosphere at KOBA.

Couchtalk with Rachel Freire: http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/couchtalk-with-rachel-freire/

Dear Potential Future Customer

I bought myself a typewriter for writing letters to our potential future customers. We always talked about using the website as a place to write diary-style entries about the day-in/day-out at the shop. But after a day of working on technology and using my laptop to manage the project, I feel no desire to sit down in front of my computer to type up this style of personal report. The typewriter provides a much more appropriate interface for the kind of communication I was imagining. It also takes away the burden of writing a perfect text, of inserting images and links. And it puts me in the mindset of writing to a friend, rather than a public announcement. Of course my goal is to continue writing these letters throughout the project on an almost daily basis. Lets see how my communication skills hold up, so far I’ve been very happily surprised to receive responses to my letters through our Twitter stream.

KOBA >> http://www.kobakant.at/KOBA/dear-future-customer
#dearfuturekobacustomer >> https://twitter.com/hashtag/dearfuturekobacustomer

Previous monthly reports:
What happened in September/October?
What happened in November?
What happened in December?