Dr Emilie Giles

I defended my PhD thesis entitled E-textiles for Self-Expression: Participatory Making with Blind and Visually Impaired People at The Open University in the Summer of 2020.

Coming from a background of maker culture and previously running co-running Codasign (a creative technology education company based in Hackney, East London) my research explores how people who are at risk of being excluded from this area can be empowered and be the creators or their own technology, rather than just having things made for them.

My PhD work focused on working with groups of visually impaired people to make interactive, e-textile art pieces - primarily in the form of fabric wall-hangings, created through a host of crafting techniques and embedded with hacked sound devices which told their stories. The work took a participatory making approach whereby the makers were very much the artists of the pieces, designing, weaving, stitching and connecting everything together before exhibiting them to the public.

I am also interested in how e-textile sensors can be used for performative purposes such as storytelling, as a way to enrich and make interactive, traditional narrative mediums.

Before my PhD I also explored gaming - particularly pervasive gaming, the use of technology in psychogeographic journeys and gender representation in games - both my BA and MA work focusing across these areas.

Publications can be read here.