I haven’t made it to the “Over Here” exhibition as it’s in Perth (and I’m not), but a classmate posted the online catalog – one to keep in mind for my materiality class exercises.
Over Here : NYISZTOR STUDIO (391 Canning Hwy, Melville, Perth)
Category Archives: textiles
Material Futures – Provocating Futures presentations
currently watching Material Futures “Provocating Futures” presentations – some interesting bio-textiles and future materials presentations. http://mamaterialfutures.tumblr.com/tagged/Provocating%20Futures live stream @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ban7HHUWYpg&feature=youtu.be
Do Ho Suh’s memory rooms
have been discovering and reading about Do Ho Suh’s frottage and fabric rooms – like “memory rooms”. Lois Weinthal’s article in “Textile Technology and Design: From Interior Space to Outer Space” relates them to Anni Albers’ “The Pliable Plane: textiles in Architecture” essay, as “third skins” after Suh described his relation of wallpaper as “clothing the house”. enjoying these explorations this weekend
am starting to appreciate the sculpture side of class too and see it might be more useful/related to textiles work (than painting – could do painting via short courses/weekends if not traveling). this textile technology stuff is pretty cool, would like to delve more into it. most of the research seems to be in UK though. am looking for some in Aus
Coded Cloth – reSkin Wearable Technology Lab
reSkin Wearable Technology Lab & Coded Cloth was a lab + exhibition showing wearable technology projects in 2007/8. It was curated by Melinda Rackham.
http://www.subtle.net/pdf/MRLEON.pdf (PDF) describes the background of the events and has examples of the work.
“In summer 2007, in order to facilitate such interdisciplinary experimentation in Australia,
Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) initiated the reSkin Wearable Technol-
ogy Lab in collaboration with Craft Australia and the Australian National University School of
Art. Twenty-one media and sound artists; programmers; jewelers; and object, textile and fash-
ion designers immersed themselves into an intensive three-week research and development
environment with six facilitators .”
“One of the many outcomes of reSkin was a physical exhibition titled Coded Cloth, held
at the Samstag Museum of Art, University of South Australia, in Adelaide (29 October–
19 December 2008). The exhibition drew from artists and designers who attended reSkin
along with practitioners whose work combined age-old craftsmanship with innovation. In
this Leonardo Gallery, we see a sample of that exhibition, wherein artists used traditional
textile practices such as weaving, stitching, embroidery, printing and dyeing. However, the
different electro-mechanical or biological properties of their materials produce aesthetically
charming and complex works that have both practical properties and surprising functionality.”
below was the callout for submissions/participation (2006 emails) – I remember reading about it:
ANAT MEDIA RELEASE
For immediate release 1 September 2006
reSkin
ANAT Media Lab on Wearable Computing
January 15 – February 4, 2007
Australian National University, Canberra
http://www.anat.org.au/reskin
About reSkin
The Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) is pleased to
announceits Summer Media Lab. reSkin will be facilitated by renowned
media artistsincluding ELISE CO (USA), JOANNA BERZOWSKA (Canada) and
ALISTAIR RIDDELL (Australia). reSkin will be an intensive three-week
workshop focussing on wearable technology, embracing the skill-based
practices of object, jewellery, fashion design and media art.
SPECIALIST WORKSHOP FACILITATORS:
Stephen Barass (Australia)
Nikita Pashenkov (USA)
reSkin facilitators will be working with artists including jewellers,
object designers, textile artists, fashion designers and media
practitioners. Together they will research, develop and rapid
prototype sensor, time based and reactive clothing, jewellery, shoes,
bags, personal environmental and device designs – anything wearable
and technologically integrated. The Lab will focus on research and
development, experimentation, collaboration and project development.
Outcomes
reSkin will end with WearNow a one-day forum of critical dialogue
looking at our wearable futures, and a special publication examining
emerging practices in depth. An exhibition of wearables that will
include outcomes from the lab is scheduled for 2008.
Who Can Apply
reSkin is open to Australian and International artists and designers
with at least 3 years of practice in the fields of jewellery and
object design, textile design, fashion design, media arts, hybrid art
and other related disciplines.
How to Apply
ANAT is currently calling for applications for reSkin. Application
guidelines including further details on the Lab, facilitators, and
public outcomes can be downloaded from the reSkin website at:
www.anat.org.au/reskin
Further information
Alexandra Gillespie
Project Manager reSkin
ANAT Media Arts Lab 2006
Dr Melinda Rackham
ANAT Executive Director
The ANAT New Media Lab 2006 reSkin is supported by the Visual Arts
and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and
Territory Governments. reSkin project partners are Australian
National University School of Art, Centre for New Media Arts (ANU),
Australian National Museum and Craft Australia.
Stitching off the Page (fancy edgings) class
last saturday (31st jan) I went along to Alex Falkiner‘s “Stitching off the Page (fancy edgings)” class in marrickville. it was a lovely afternoon learning new stitches and techniques for the edges of fabric. I really wanted to learn her “netting” stitch and just block out a few hours to spend stitching. great to speak to others too
some photos of the “in progress” parts of the stitches for future reference. I felt I was having a bad day stitching – extra slow and making lots of mistakes (which given my state that week after the recent surgery/recovery wasn’t too surprising), but I’ll try these again when feeling better.
the netting stitch is like blanket stitch but you stitch into the air / where the loops join instead of into the fabric
solace – sunlight falls, my wings open wide
“Solace” project: India Flint is doing a residency in South Australia in June this year, and has invited people to make flags to hang.
“Make a triangular flag or pennon [meaning a personal ensign, derived from the Latin penna meaning a wing or a feather] preferably using a piece of pre-loved cloth. Stitch on it a word or a phrase or a sentence that might act as a wish for peace or an acknowledgement of beauty, imply a sense of stillness or simply something that gives you solace. It can be as brief or as long as you like. A haiku, a snatch of song, a word that takes you where you want to be. Attach ties to the tethering end of your flag”
& then post it to the address on the page. she’ll dye them, and photos will go into a book/online.
http://prophet-of-bloom.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/an-invitation.html has the details.
I made one tonight using a song snippet:
“sunlight falls, my wings open wide” from orpheus by david sylvian, on the secrets of the beehive album, because it always gives me solace when i play it.
japanese cotton with wool thread
some others in the Sketchbooks and Experiments for Textiles facebook group are going to make one too
David Sylvian – Orpheus lyrics:
Standing firm on this stony ground
The wind blows hard
Pulls these clothes around
I harbour all the same worries as most
The temptations to leave or to give up the ghost
I wrestle with an outlook on life
That shifts between darkness and shadowy light
I struggle with words for fear that they’ll hear
But orpheus sleeps on his back still dead to the world
Sunlight falls, my wings open wide
There’s a beauty here I cannot deny
And bottles that tumble and crash on the stairs
Are just so many people I knew never cared
Down below on the wreck of the ship
Are a stronghold of pleasures I couldn’t regret
But the baggage is swallowed up by the tide
As orpheus keeps to his promise and stays by my side
Tell me, I’ve still a lot to learn
Understand, these fires never stop
Believe me, when this joke is tired of laughing
I will hear the promise of my orpheus sing
Sleepers sleep as we row the boat
Just you the weather and I gave up hope
But all of the hurdles that fell in our laps
Was fuel for the fire and straw for our backs
Still the voices have stories to tell
Of the power struggles in heaven and hell
But we feel secure against such mighty dreams
As orpheus sings of the promise tomorrow may bring
Tell me, I’ve still a lot to learn
Understand, these fires never stop
Please believe, when this joke is tired of laughing
I will hear the promise of my orpheus sing
playing with tyvek
for assignment 3 they suggest we try working with tyvek. I tried one experiment a couple of weeks ago, based on a tutorial I saw on December 2014’s workshop on the web issue. it said to iron the tyvek then paint it with acrylics afterwards. well, I tried it and didn’t like how the painted version turned out. at all. I really liked the plain, white ironed tyvek – the shapes are amazing. very organic. like pebbles in a stream, or cells in the body. I like the ridges on the reverse side also. but I must have painted too thickly with the acrylic paint so I think I ruined them. then last night Hanna posted her watercolour painted versions on the textiles facebook page and they looked amazing. she’d made them look so fluid. she said she painted with really watery watercolour, then used a heat gun to shape the tyvek. so I tried again last night using watercolour, ink, charcoal, brusho, coloured pencils, pastels – this time painting them first, then ironing to get the shapes. much better! I like these attempts much better than the initial ones. Barbara mentioned you can use silk dyes too (setasilk) and stitch them before heating too. that makes more sense as the tyvek I have is soft like paper originally but once heated becomes like hard plastic, so I’m not sure how stitching it afterwards would work. Hannah mentioned there are also different types of tyvek. I’d just ordered a sampler kit so I’m not sure what gauge mine is, but it sounds thicker than what she’s using.
more photos uploaded to https://www.flickr.com/photos/aliak_com/sets/72157647439971294
Fujimoto’s twists – shadowfolds
making some geometric fabric folds on cotton since my copy of “Shadowfolds” book by Jeffrey Rutzky and Chris K Palmer arrived. this one is called “Fujimoto’s twists” — it’s a mixture of stitched squares, triangles and lines, and is a bit like smocking. I need to iron the front side flatter, but happy with how it turned out. I’d drawn the pattern shapes freehand instead of tracing the pattern as the book suggested, so the shapes are slightly uneven compared to the examples in the book, but I’m OK with that. makes it a bit more organic.
they don’t take too long to make either — I made this sample over a couple of hours whilst watching tv.
front side:
back side: (actually I like this also as a front side — might do another)
Shadowfolds book:
finding a line
I sat down again to my stitch noodling frame today to relax and play and tried some thinner cotton. this time double stranded sewing thread. tried some button hole stitch — still my favourite ever since discovering Junko Oki’s work — especially her circles, last year. the first row is a row of straight edged button hole stitch. for the second row, I noticed the thread was settling into the fabric in a more organic way, not wanting to stick to the straight line. so I let it go, and it made this really nice organic, jagged line which I really like. it’s a bit closer to an open (loose) cretan stitch, but also looks more like a heartbeat, or simple audio waveform. sometimes it’s worth letting go of your plans to find the better line.
velvet folds
I’m trying techniques for the fabric manipulation part of assignment 3 and came across this note called gorgeous fabric manipulation (velvet) so I tried it. I only used very small fabric samples to make initial tests, and I should have used a heavier weight fusing/interfacing as the velvet is heavier fabric than the light fusing I tried. apparently this works well for silk too
Use a cooling rack that has both horizontal and vertical grids. place velvet upside down and with a pencil push little bunches of fabric through. Take a fusible interfacing and then place on top of tufted velvet (wrong side) and iron. The grid should have little feet on sides so that the velvet is not crushed.
at first I couldn’t understand what she meant by using the pencil — I thought she meant to put holes in the velvet, so I only tried this on a very small piece, in case it didn’t work out. which it didn’t. but I did like the grid indentations in the velvet, so the experiment wasn’t all lost. I was going to try a metal collander also but the holes were too small for the velvet — perhaps silk would be better for this as it’s lighter fabric, though it would also be a hard surface to iron.
I didn’t have a metal rack with squares/vertical and horizontal grids, only horizontal rows, so I had to hold two racks together to form the squares. next time I might try buy another rack. or use small pegs/bulldog clips to hold the velvet through the holes, as it was hard to get it to stay in them. I had to iron it first to try hold the velvet into shape, and then iron the fusing over it to seal / hold it permanently.
I also tried a small metal egg cup, though it was harder to iron due to the irregular (non-flat) shape