ENTANGLED THREADS
Part of the opt:exp Research Framework
Entangled Threads is an ongoing artistic research project investigating material knowledge, energy, and embodied processes within responsive installation systems.
Textiles, light, and sensors function as structural components that generate feedback, latency, and emergent behaviour. Zlatovez embroidery techniques appear as residual knowledge embedded in the material network, translated into system-based environments shaped by signal interaction.
The project explores temporal tension between hand-based production and accelerated electromagnetic infrastructures. Wearable structures, folding geometries, and responsive light systems operate within installation contexts that connect embodied practice with contemporary signal environments.
1. Folding Field (2025) / Body-Centered Feedback & Embodied Interaction
Folding Field is a wearable system developed in collaboration with scientists and physicists during the FUNKEN × MAIN Residency at TU Chemnitz.
Electromagnetic sensors were used in laboratory environments to record field data. This material informed the sound design, which activates audio-reactive LEDs embedded in the wearable structure.
The fabric is constructed using experimental folding principles inspired by origami geometries and smartlet architectures in nano-robotics. Layered translucent materials translate the structural logic of nano-membranes into a tactile textile system.
Movement, signal, and light interact in real time, producing emergent audiovisual behaviour within installation and live configurations.
2. The Golden Signal (2026) / Residue Knowledge & Textile Systems
The Golden Signal investigates how Zlatovez embroidery, movement, and responsive textiles generate emergent audiovisual behavior. Partial techniques, residual material properties, and energetic interactions are improvised both by hand and with machine in freeform embroidery, without templates.
Sensor-driven feedback transforms residual gestures into dynamic, signal-responsive systems, revealing hidden processes, perceptual thresholds, and latency in bodily-material interaction.
// systems:
3. The Golden Signal EXT (planned) / Environmental Coupling & Generative Feedback
The Golden Signal EXT will extend the research from body-centered to environment-influenced systems, exploring how textiles respond to electromagnetic fields and spatial dynamics. Generative projections and visual 3D animations will interact with wearable sensors, creating a multi-layered audiovisual environment.
The system investigates distributed agency, emergent rhythms, and perceptual thresholds influenced more by environmental conditions than direct bodily input.
4. Signal Drift (planned) / Multi-Agent Performance & Relational Systems
Signal Drift system will integrate performers, musicians, and responsive textiles, combining projection mapping, generative visuals, and live interaction. It investigates complex relational systems in which body, material, environment, and technology co-produce audiovisual emergence.
This system emphasizes multi-layered feedback, unpredictability, and distributed perception, creating conditions for posthuman, non-linear knowledge production within live performance contexts.