Hybrid Embroidery Games: Playing with Materials, Machines, and People

Video

DOI

Our work centers on aspects of crafting creativity that are often overlooked in digital fabrication: playfulness, and possibilities for social engagement. We draw from precedents in both crafting (e.g. quilting bees) and gameplay (e.g. “Exquisite Corpse”) to inform the design of a set of turn-based collaborative games which center a computer-controlled embroidery machine as a “player” in games for one or more crafters. We prototype these games using our own computational input/ output embroidery pipeline and observe how they can guide crafter-players to engage with physical, digital, and social affordances. We summarize our findings on how creative focus can shift over a playful experience of fabrication and how technology can mediate social crafting.