Soft Play: E-textiles for Storytelling

Felt or flannel boards are a way of engaging others (especially children) through storytelling. E-textiles enable digital components to be embedded into fabrics, which can offer more opportunities for interactions. Having grown up with my mother telling me fairytales with and her own made-up stories by creating scenes with felt pieces on a board, I was inspired to elevate this traditional storytelling method with technology. In a time where computers and new digital media hold the greater population’s attention, storytelling feels less personal in terms of interpretation and expressiveness in retelling. We can easily watch a film to learn a story, but a tangible medium would enable a participatory social experience that is more interactive and memorable. I aim to incorporate e-textiles in developing a felt-based board for storytelling using modular pieces with conductive elements to connect circuitry and light up LEDs. The completed project can be used to assemble a decorative piece or reused to tell various stories. By creating this e-textile artifact, groups of people can interact with it simultaneously and share their unique perspectives on the story while being physically engaged in social collaborative play.