biography
Joanna Berzowska is Assistant Professor of Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University and a member of the Hexagram Research Institute in Montreal. She is the founder and research director of XS Labs, where her team develops innovative methods and applications in electronic textiles and responsive garments.

Her art and design work has been shown in the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum in NYC, the V&A in London, the Millenium Museum in Beijing, various SIGGRAPH Art Galleries, ISEA, the Art Directors Club in NYC, the Australian Museum in Sydney, NTT ICC in Tokyo, and Ars Electronica Center in Linz among others.

She lectures internationally about the field of electronic textiles and related social, cultural, aesthetic, and political issues. She was recently selected for the Maclean's 2006 Honour Roll as one of "thirty nine Canadians who make the world a better place to live in".

She received her Masters of Science from MIT for her work titled Computational Expressionism and subsequently worked with the Tangible Media Group of the MIT Media Lab and cofounded International Fashion Machines in Boston. She holds a BA in Pure Math and a BFA in Design Arts.

photos by R. Borshan (c) 2007

press photographs
XS Labs is a design research studio with a focus on innovation in the fields of electronic textiles and wearable computing, where we try to break down the traditional boundaries between disciplines. Many of our electronic textile innovations come from the fact that we look at the technical but also cultural history of how textiles have been made for generations (weaving, stitching, embroidery, knitting, beading, quilting) but use materials with different electro-mechanical properties, which enables us to construct more complex textiles with electronic properties.
about XS labs
XS labs press photos

Joanna Berzowska, Marguerite Bromley, and Marcelo Coelho
photos by Jessica Butler, (c) XS Labs 2005

drag with the yellow handle
grid it!
email: joey@berzowska.com
phone: 514-848-2424 x.4723 (office)
fax: 514-848-4252
mail: Computation Arts, Concordia University
1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West, EV 6-743
Montreal, QC. H3G 1M8 Canada
Joanna Berzowska
contacts
texts
· Soft Computation Through Conductive Textiles ·
Berzowska, J. and Bromley, M.
in the proceedings of the International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes Conference, 2007 (IFFTI '07) ·
· Constellation Dresses and The Leeches:
Questions of Power for Electronic Garments ·
Berzowska, J.
in the proceedings of the International Foundation of Fashion Technology Institutes Conference, 2007 (IFFTI '07) ·
· Kukkia and Vilkas: Kinetic Electronic Garments ·
Berzowska, J. and Coelho, M.
in the 9th IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC '05) ·
· SMOKS: The Memory Suits,
in the Conference on Human Factors ·
Berzowska, J. and Coelho, M.
in Computing Systems (CHI '06) ·
· Memory-Rich Clothing ·
Berzowska, J. and Coelho, M.
in the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '06).
· Memory Rich Clothing: Second Skins that Communicate Physical Memory
Berzowska, J.
in Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Creativity & Cognition (C&C '05).
even more texts
· Electronic Textiles: Wearable Computers, Reactive Fashion, and Soft Computation, in Textile ·
Volume 3, Issue 1, pp. 2–19 © 2005 Berg. Printed in the UK.
· Very Slowly Animating Textiles: Shimmering Flower ·
in the Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2004, ACM Press, ©2004 ACM
· Intimate Electronics: Wearable Computers, Electronic Textiles, and Reactive Fashion ·
By Joanna Berzowska in Horizon Zero issue 16: Wear (July/August 2004)
· Memory-Rich Architectures ·
Joanna Berzowska on how future nanotech might help us relive the past in Horizon Zero issue 14: Dream (March/April 2004)
· Second Skin. The art of smart garments ·
Nina Czegledy interviewing Joanna Berzowska, Katherine Moriwaki and Kristina Andersen in the ISEA newsletter ISSN 1488-3635 #96, March/April 2004
· In the Shadow of the Cyborg ·
an interview with Joey Berzowska by Jake Moore
DPI: The Studio XX Electronic Review Issue 2, January 2005.