Textiles that respond to touch and gesture to embody visions of the future through visual, tactile, and sonic landscape have earned Assistant Professor Irmandy Wicaksono (Division of Industrial Design) the Young Artist Award at ARTJOG 2026, an annual contemporary art festival held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
Asst Prof Wicaksono received the award for Knitwork, an immersive installation comprising six interconnected 3D-knitted textile panels. Silver-plated fibres embedded within the fabric act as textile antennas, detecting nearby movements and physical contact and transforming them into an evolving ambient soundscape in real time.
The installation is structured around the Gunungan, a form used in traditional wayang shadow puppetry to mark transitions, new beginnings and shifts in perspective. As Director of the Soft Technologies Lab at CDE, Asst Prof Wicaksono's research brings together digital fabrication, functional fibers, and hardware systems with potential applications in healthcare, human-computer interaction, architecture and the interactive arts. He was one of three winners selected by an invited jury from 19 artists featured in the festival’s Young Artist Award programme, which supports artists under 35 in developing their practice.
Knitwork is on display at the Jogja National Museum in Yogyakarta until 30 August 2026.
