Grown Microbial 3D fiber art, AVA: Fusion of traditional art

with technology

ABSTRACT originates from the bacterial cellulose that is created when

tea and sugar undergoing fermentation process (method that
This paper explores potential uses of traditional arts into
current technology applications in fashion industry, through can be traced back to ancient China in 220 BCE). [10]The
an aesthetic piece of bio fiber artwork named Ava. fermentation process can be controlled and open up
boundless possibilities. Kombucha textile, a microbial
The inspiration of integrating these traditional techniques cellulose created through fermentation of tea broth
with modern technologies, came across observing the produced by Acetobacter spices, has become one of the
unique properties of the sustainable self-grown microbial textile alternative based for wearable from its unique
cellulose, Kombucha textile. As a fibrous and leathery like properties besides diverse applications in biomedical, food
cellulose textile, Kombucha faces some flexibility and beverage, audio industry and etc.[9][11]Self grown
limitations in its dry state. Mathematical folds that origin microbial textile from Kombucha is able to grown in any
from primitive techniques of Origami,[7] the paper folding flat piece fully depending on the molded surface area and
art ,is applied to reduce this limitations and enhance the ready to be harvested and dried into Kombucha textile once
textile resiliency. cellulose grown into the ideal thickness. However,
regardless of the beneficial aspect of this material, more
Kombucha self-adhesive feature is complemented with the
research and experiment is yet to be done to fully utilize
use of ideal circuit materials such as SMD LEDs and
and improve the feature of Kombucha.
conductive thread, due its malleability, as a wire
substitution in between cellulose layers.
The combination of all this elements, gives birth to a new
way of project evolution in fashion industry, given a new
form of bio-textile with sustainable, practical and
technological elements.
Author Keywords
Microbial cellulose; fashion-technology; origami;
sustainable design; self-grown fashion(SGF); bacterial
cellulose; bio-fashion
ACM Classification Keywords
B.0. Hardware: General
INTRODUCTION
Fashion is an ever fast changing practice in today's context.
Wearable technology has drastically improved our lives
style. On the other hand, fashion has becoming the 2nd
Figure 1. Sample of microbial cellulose during Kombucha
greatest culprit to pollution due to the unhealthy fast fermentation process.
fashion trend.[2]
Hence, besides advanced wearable technologies, Similar to passing down technique of Kombucha from
sustainability and eco-friendly has becoming one of the key olden days.[10]Origami is a traditional paper folding art
aspect in current wearable trend. Grown bio material had that has been widely evolved and explored in modern days,
been introducing by various artist that are challenging the applications has utilized beyond art form but also in
impossible and creating unexpected results that makes technological and science applications. Origami-inspired
people questioning the current comfort zone we living in structures and ideas are increasingly informing the design
between technologies and nature. Kombucha Scoby is a of microscopic mechanical devices and molecular
biotextile that grown via fermentation and functions like a assemblies. Thin sheets have been known to experience an
second skin (see Figure 1). The main ingredient used increase in stiffness when they are bent, buckled, or
assembled into smaller interlocking structures. Hence,
• License: The author(s) retain copyright, but ACM receives an application of mathematical folds is applied in Kombucha
exclusive publication license. textile manipulation to enhance its mechanical
.
characteristics and geometric versatility, leading to a
potential design paradigm for wearable structures.[3]
Lastly, up to date yet simple components is used for
straightforward electronic circuit to demonstrate the
potential of assembling and hold onto circuits in between
Kombucha textile seamlessly without extra tool aid besides
drying process.
CONCEPT
The main design and technique used in this piece is further
inspired by the concept of yin and yang, which signifies the
balance in between the growth of life from microorganism
in Kombucha and technology from modern circuitry and
traditional origami technique, with two halves that come
together to form a harmonious whole which is exhibited as
the final form of Ava.
Yin and Yang also lives in the amiable balance
demonstrated through the positive and negative spaces
created by the precise mountains and valley folds of the
designated origami patterns.
In addition to 3D patterned cellulose textile, the
complementary colours of blue(cool tone) and red (warm
tone) on each side of the cellulose textile is dyed to depict
the opposite two halves. Through bend and stretch of this
flexible piece, strong and soft lights passing through the
thin membrane allows user to value different appearance of
Ava. LEDs were further embedded in the cellulose during
the assembly process, accentuating the duality of form
through and opacity that is created. However, no post
furnish on kombucha textile is intended to express its
ultimate raw and organic appearance, as life itself (see
Figure 2).
Figure 2. The final form of Ava, the bio fiber art piece inspired
by Yin and Yang with its raw furnishing.
MOTIVATION
Taking sustainable as the key aspect for future wearable in
this eco age. Motivation of this project is to stimulate and
present the possibilities of grown bio textile as an
alternative sustainable and eco-green for the future
wearable textile. With this possibilities, lab grown materials
which means matters that are synthetically cultivated in
laboratory featuring sustainable characteristics will be the
future materials to resolve current environmental issues.
Ava is created with mainly sustainable material, started
with exploration on characteristics of Kombucha textile as a
high purity, better mechanical strength with micro fibrils
forming ribbons, crystalline structure, together with its
antimicrobial properties and wide application in medical
field in which case contributing health aid in wearable
industry. [9][10][11]
Ava is holding on to 100% organic processes without
harmful manufacturing process. However, despite strong
and robust features of cellulose material, it is still under
development for wearable industry due to its rigidity and
non-waterproof features when it is dry which needed
solution to make the material better. In addition, although
there are other wearable designers that are experimenting
different dyeing techniques through Kombucha cellulose in
bio-couture, they are mainly applying Kombucha textile as
a literal substitution of current textile [2] as a 2D flat fabric
piece. Which I believe, some distinctive features such as
strong fibrous strength while its wet, self-adhesive in
Kombucha cellulose with greater potential is yet to explore
in wearable industry (see Figure 3)
Furthermore, despite aesthetic form of origami forms, the
fold pattern is attractive from an engineering analysis and
application perspective due to the following properties and
this technique is chosen based on few features that is
beneficial in wearable industry [1], such as:
• Manufacturable and transferable design due to its
straight forward topology .
• Designed patterns is scalable and editable across a
wide range of size domains for use with actuators
of different sizes and classes based on different
needs.
• Rigid foldable form which allow inelastic textile a
new transformation to perform flexible movement
such as bend and stretch.
• Compactable and compressible is another key
features in origami patterns that space saving and
easy transportation for mass production.
Futhermore, I am driven to promote and showcase strong
and sturdy self-adhesive application of Kombucha
celluloses piece without additional aid of stitching or
glueing to be embedded items in between surface.
Hence Ava, has use SMD LEDs with thin and malleable
conductive thread to create the invisibility when the piece is
not lighted on with the objective to showcase and stimulate
possibilities of embedded items in between translucent and
thin textile.
As a whole, my motivation is also to challenge the
limitation and stimulate the potent attribute of Kombucha
cellulose.
Figure 3. The alternative form of Ava, the bio fiber art piece
with embedded LEDs.
INTENDED AUDIENCE AND END-USE
The target audience can be diverse from the range of
product or fashion designers to artists based on the specific
function that the bio-textile is grown for or user who
focused on application for wearable technology.
As a fashion piece and alternative textile used in wearable
and clothing, AVA is attractive for being environmentally
friendly and being a sustainable material that can be treated
and customized for its intended purpose during the
manufacturing stage. This allows the textile to grow to form
the structure of the final product (such as a dress). As such,
AVA will change the industry by providing a new way of
looking into the garment manufacturing process.
Along with designated mathematical folds as a style choice
allows user to sculpt and transform the flat piece of origami
panel into various 3D forms that is beneficial in flexibility,
space-saving and wrinkles free which will be practicable
use for wearable or accessories piece.
Figure 4. The potential use of Ava as a bio fiber art in fashion
industry including accessories and wearable parts.
TECHNOLOGICAL
As a fusion piece of lighted up, mathematical fold pattern
Kombucha textile, Ava started with research and
methodology of 3 different aspect on grown material, style
and techniques on origami, lastly embedded technologies
with LED.
Each aspect comes with different techniques will be
described in detailed under execution session.
• Kombucha tea broth is used to generate Kombucha
microbial textile. By controlling synthesis
methods, the resulting microbial cellulose can be
tailored to have specific desirable properties.
• Designated C-fold curve origami patterned is used
to allow pliability and form formation.
• Advanced electronics such as smd LED for
wearable is fix on to minimize the visible
appearance of circuits. And organic relief
arrangement from pliable conductive thread is
portraying biotic structure of living organism .
• With featuring colour transformation from blue to
white through Heat. Thermal active particles is
added into dye process of organic blue colour dye
and red food colouring for Kombucha textile.
EXECUTION AND METHODOLOGY
Methodology of Ava will be first exploring each limitation
and strengths of chosen material, Kombucha cellulose
and origami folds technique , and planning for embedded
LEDs circuits. Each aspect executed with individual
experiment and test before congregated for main execution.
Kombucha Textile
To produce Kombucha textile, microbial cellulose also
named as Scoby is derived by the synthesis of cellulose in
Acetobacter xylinum through cellulose-synthesizing.
Although plant cellulose and microbial cellulose share the
same chemical structures, it composes better fibers of
cellulose than plant cellulose.[9]
Broth Recipe
Thickness of cellulose can be manipulated based on
temperature, time and air ventilation for oxygen supply,
carbon source(sugar) and PH value in Kombucha broth. [6]
Several comparison of different broth recipe[4][5] is
experimental to obtain the ideal thickness with the given
circumstances. Black tea bags, water, sugar was used as the
substrate together with kombucha solution and starter
culture(Scoby) with the proportion of 3 teabags : 1 liter of
water : 100 ml of Kombucha tea : 1 Scoby in room
temperature. Tea broth was then ready to undergoing
fermentation process up to 9-15 days.
Kombucha growing process
Due to big surface area (55cm x 120cm) of Kombucha
cellulose is needed, waterproof( YUPO) paper is used as
folded container with an optimal amount of 5L tea broth in
room temperature of 25 degree Celsius.
Figure 5. Harvesting Kombucha microbial cellulose from
fermented tea broth after 15 days.
Dyeing Process
Dyeing process then is proceeded with natural blue dye
from gardenia crassicaulis while red dye is food colouring
and natural dye from rosa rugosa is used. And each colour
is dipped with opposite end of Kombucha textile after
filtered out with access broth. Colour will be adsorbed and
settled down during the drying process. (see Figure 6).
Figure 6. The dyeing process of Kombucha cellulose into
natural blue and red dye coherently .
Origami Folds
To create an ideal mathematical tessellation origami pattern
for Kombucha textile, pattern choice needed to take
flexibility, versatility and complexity into consideration
.The folds will be executed through “sandwiching” process
of Kombucha textile in between 2 piece of designated
template followed by drying process. Patterned textile is
then removed from template after fully air-dried.
Template Design
Origami patterns was design with the intention of ultra
flexibility and versatile through C-curve folds.Patterns is
improvised based on one of the most widely recognizable
folds in origami, the waterbomb base is a single-vertex
bistable origami mechanism that has unique properties
which have proven its functionality in a variety of
mechanism applications for transportation, houseware and
etc .[1]
C-folds
Hence, instead of square ratio of 1:1 like water bomb folds.
C-fold is a re-designed origami pattern into rectangular
ratio modular inspired by it. Unlike constant straight folds
of water bomb patterns, C-folds allows panel to be full flat
when its slightly stretch (see Figure 7).and curl up to C
shape when it is compressed.
These repeating patterns allows the overall form of the
structure to create vast possibilities of interesting forms
through morph motion, flips and curl around into a sphere
shape when pressure is applied to the sides. While equal
pressure is applied to the top and bottom, the structure
begins to collapse on itself, creating a donut shape.
Origami template of 60cm by 54cm was design using a
computer-aided design(CAD) Rhino3D software. and
waterproof material, Yupo paper is used as template
material.
Laser cutting machine was used with rastering input using
CoralDraw software with the power of 19, speed of 100
and 40 ppi for scoring purpose.
Folds Execution
Kombucha mold needed to be folded before actual
execution of “sandwiching” procedure. And efficiency of
folds execution increased with systematic folding steps by
foldin with creases facing inwards.
• Pre-pleating individual mountain and valley folds.
• Gathering pleats horizontally, row by row instead
of columns.
Figure 7. Folded template of C-fold pattern in flat formation
when it is not compressed.
Lastly, 2 pieces of folded C-fold origami mold is stacked
and tied together to secure the shape firmly and ready to be
use for main execution.
Electronics 7. Final piece is supposed to tied up tightly and air dried
Self-adhesive features during drying process of Kombucha in 2 days.
textile allows circuit to assemble on surface without
conventional stitches and glue. Ideal electronic circuitry is 8. Organza piece is then carefully separated apart and
first map out based on origami template. Designed circuitry ready to be use.
is then tested out with several fine tuning on electronics
component for the ideal output and ready to be use for main
execution.
Fabrication
To develop invisible appearance effects on Ava, ideal
component will be as unnoticed and compact as possible.
Hence:
• SMD LEDs is used due to its tiny yet strong bright Figure 8. Sample of Ava piece with transition
capacity. SMD stands for Surface Mounted towards origami form
Devices, a special type of high power LED lights.
With no wires, these devices provide less fuss and
with seamless application.
• Conductive thread is also used as a substitution of
wires by creating flexible circuits that require no
soldering and considered to be the most practical
tool to maintain the hang of the fabric.
• SMD LEDs is first soldered with thin wires and
hook onto conductive thread.
Circuitry is designed with an 12 V battery, dry cell pack
supply. To allow lights up demonstration of Ava in various Figure 9. Sample of Ava piece with transition towards
origami form
manners, positive and negative polar of electronics is
constructed in 2 ways for
• connection of + and -on the opposite ends of Ava RESULT AND DISCUSSION
panel for light demonstration while it is hang up. Final product of Ava is created positively with close
execution based on the planned methodology. Thin layers
• connection of + and - side by side of Ava panel to
of filament caused tears on certain area of Kombucha which
allow flat piece demonstration.
providentially able to cover up with thin filament of fresh
Main Execution cellulose. Also, layers in between can separated again by
Main execution is implemented started with: dampen the surface area.
1. Dyeing red and blue colors after harvesting Kombucha Besides, a stronger bond between Kombucha cellulose is
cellulose. discovered due to its continuous growing and fermenting
2. Kombucha cellulose is drained aside into semi-dry process while air-drying the panel.
state. Ava is now act as an experimental piece, created with thin
3. First layer of template is laid out and put the film of Kombucha textile with simple circuits piece.).
Nonetheless, complex design with advanced technologies
Kombucha cellulose on top. ( Organza fabric piece is
for greater possibilities is definitely achievable.
added in between template and cellulose to avoid
tearing cellulose after drying process.) CONCLUSION
Bacterial cellulose of Kombucha provides a wide range of
4. Planned design circuitry is then placed on top of the
commercial applications due to its strong fibrous structure
semi-wet cellulose and covered by second piece of
exerted by Acetobacter xylinum, high purity and unique
Kombucha textile. (see Figure 8)
physicochemical characteristic. Hopefully Ava as a fusion
5. Another piece of template is covered on top and product from grown bio textile with technologies able to
proceed to the fold “sandwiching” process with stimulate and has open up huge range of possibilities in
template on. (see Figure 9). fashion and technology industry as an alternative medium
for futuristic sustainable wearable.
6. Final circuitry test of Ava piece before tying and air
dried process with lighted up circuit.
 6. Parmjit S. Panesar, Yogita Chavan, Harish K.
Chopra, and John F. Kennedy. 2011. Production of
microbial cellulose: Response surface
methodology approach. Carbohydrate Polymers
87, 1 (August 2011), 930–934.
DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.carbpol.2011.08.0
02
7. Patsy Wang-Iverson, Robert J. Lang, and Mark
Yim. 2011. Origami 5: Fifth International Meeting
of Origami Science, Mathematics, and Education,
Boca Raton: CRC Press.
8. Paul Jackson. 2016. Folding techniques for
Figure 10. Final result of Ava, the microbial cellulose bio fiber designers: from sheet to form, London: Laurence
art. King Publishing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 9. Rainer Jonas and Luiz F. Farah. 1997. Production
I thank all my friends, technicians and teacher who and application of microbial cellulose. Polymer
provided genuine feedbacks and useful inputs during the Degradation and Stability 59, 1-3 (August 1997),
process of creating this project AVA especially David 101–106. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s0141-
Moreno Belmonte for his proficient assistance throughout 3910(97)00197-3
the execution process. Last but not least, gratefully
acknowledge for the use of space in Loom lab from school 10. Rasu Jayabalan, Radomir V. Malbaša, Eva S.
of art design media where all the experiments of project Lončar, Jasmina S. Vitas, and Muthuswamy
Ava took place in. Sathishkumar. 2014. A Review on Kombucha
Tea—Microbiology, Composition, Fermentation,
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