Senseware

Ron Arad’s Design Museum in Israel is proving its cultural and cutting-edge significance as the institution’s second exhibition, Senseware, showcases some of the most exciting advances in synthetic fibre technology, with a focus on the possibilities for Japanese-made artificial fibres.

Senseware features the work of 17 designers and artists - selected from various fields including architecture, interior design, product design and fashion - each of which has paired up with one of Japan’s leading synthetic fibre and textile manufacturers to explore the potential of various materials.

Inspired by vernacular Japanese chochin paper lanterns, design company Nendo have used the properties of 'Smash' - a specialised long-fibre non-woven polyester that can be manipulated into different forms through hot press forming technology - to create the Blown Fabric lights (shortlisted in the Product category for this year's Brit Insurance Design Awards). British industrial designer Ross Lovegrove's work, Seeds of Love, comprises a series of sculptural backpacks that makes use of the properties of Triaxial Woven Fabric (TWF), which uses three threads intersecting each other at 60 degrees in a network arrangement that allows structures to respond to dynamic surface changes in three dimensions. French designer and architect Gwenaël Nicholas had the bright idea to create Mist Bench, an interactive piece woven from the optical fibre ESKA, which responds to a visitor’s movement by glowing luminously. Acclaimed Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, has used TENAX carbon fibre, a strong, light and supple super-fibre that has contributed to the creation of the next generation of lightweight aircraft and automobiles, to create an ultra-light chair.

The exhibition, which previewed at La Triennale di Milano in April 2009 as part of the Tokyo Fiber series, is curated by Tokyo-based Japanese graphic designer Kenya Hara; ‘Just as stone inspired and energised people in ancient times, paper since the invention of the printing press and electronic media with the Internet, what kind of desire will Japan’s ever more sophisticated chemical fibres awake in people as a new mode of Senseware?’ Hara said of the exhibition.

Senseware follows the Design Museum’s inaugural show The State of Things, and continues the new museum’s objective to highlight the factors that impact contemporary design processes and the relevance of design in our lives today.