Jessica Stanley

Jessica Stanley is a researcher and maker working mainly with electronic textiles and flexible electronics. She is interested in democratising technology through hands-on making, and has worked with, and in, several fablabs across Europe. She previously visited Center Rog in 2022 as part of the EU project Shemakes, which supported women in the textile industry, and has been keen to come back ever since. Jessica has also worked as maker education coordinator, running electronics and digital fabrication workshops in Ireland, the Netherlands, and the UK. At Center Rog she's making e-textiles with locally available materials. Electronic textiles (e-textiles) combine electronics and fabrics to make all kinds of interesting things: clothing that can light up, soft interfaces for computers, wearable medical devices, and much more. But the materials used to make e-textiles aren't easy to find in Slovenia and other countries, which means that your geographical location limits your access to this new technology. This project will explore locally available alternatives to metal-plated conductive yarns, and silver inks, normally used to make e-textiles, and investigate using fine wires, tinfoil, metallic tapes, and biomaterials instead. She'll also conduct a public workshop on how to make flexible electronic circuits using a vinyl cutter (a machine available at Center Rog) and copper tape (which is sold by hardware and gardening shops because it keeps slugs away from plants). This is an open source project, meaning that all the information needed to recreate the work will be shared freely for anyone to use.