Burglar Alarm: More Than 100 Years of Smart Textiles

This paper describes Burglar Alarm, an installation based on two patents formulated in the 1890s. They propose a curtain as an alarm system, suggesting, among others, a metal thread as a circuit conductor woven throughout the fabric - an early formulation of smart textile potentials. The installation shows the patents, material samples of the circuit solutions they propose, and a recreation of the main functionality: a curtain producing an alarm when opened unexpectedly. The installation aims at a critical and historical perspective on smart textiles, providing viewers with a tangible provocation to current narratives of innovation. It presents and performs design considerations of interactive systems from more than a hundred years ago, contextualizing smart and electronic textiles as a historical technology. The work is part of an ongoing material inquiry into metal threads, and their historic and present use in aesthetic and technical objects.