Material dispositions and the composition of expressive movement
2025 – 2026
BEHAVIOURAL TEXTILE INSTALLATION
clear filament woven structures
heat-responsive coiled filament
conductive yarn
custom electronics
custom behaviour-design software (Behaviourly)
Exhibited as part of Crafting Behaviour at Oscillation, Centre Culturel Canadien, Paris, 15 October 2025 – 16 January 2026. Curated by Catherine Bédard (Centre Culturel Canadien), Alice Jarry (Concordia University), Samuel Bianchini (EnsadLab), and Marie-Pier Boucher (University of Toronto), as part of Némo – Biennale internationale des arts numériques de la Région Île-de-France.
Material Instincts explores how expressive artificial behaviour arises from the interplay between movement dispositions of textile bodies and the modulation of their activation over time.
The installation brings together three textile bodies whose structural organisation gives rise to particular tendencies for movement. These structures integrate heat-responsive coiled filaments with conductive elements that enable their activation through resistive heating, generating global deformations in each structure. This mode of activation allows the thermal input to be varied over time by changing the level and duration of applied voltage. In Material Instincts, these variations are implemented using Behaviourly, a custom material-behaviour design software.
Variations in thermal input produce changes in movement qualities such as speed, acceleration and amplitude, which manifest differently according to the movement dispositions of each textile body. Exploring this relationship progressively revealed a repertoire of movements available to each structure. Experiencing these movements informed their selection and organisation into individual sequences, whose temporal unfolding gives each body its particular behaviour. Individual behaviours were then composed in relation to one another through their temporality and differences in intensity, shaping how the installation unfolds as a whole.
Material Instincts operates at a perceptual threshold where composed behaviour gives rise to a sense of animateness. Engaging perception and interpretation as behaviour manifests in unfamiliar kinds of bodies, the work opens questions about how we might relate to artificial things when we encounter them through their own behaviour.
CREDITS
Concept & execution: Ana Piñeyro
Software: Börkur Sigurbjörnsson (Behaviourly)
Hardware engineering: Alexandre Mazel
Technical consultant: Martin Piñeyro
Video & editing: Ana Piñeyro