Resolution: from Digital to Cloth was opened yesterday. The exhibition is held at the Foyer Gallery at the ANU School of Art here in Canberra.
Often people outside the textile community are surprised to hear that a textile practitioner also works with digital media or that someone interested in digital media also works in textiles. What people do not understand is that digital technology now (2004) permeates all areas of professional textile practice. Textile technology and digital technology are now intertwined as from the start there has been a connection between the two. Charles Babbage in 1834 used Jaquard loom technology to solve the sequencing problems he was having with his Analytical Engine. Since this was the first programmable machine it is considered a fore runner, if not the first computer.
Some of my own work is in the exhibition. I am interested in the connections between textiles and digital technology. The series that Annie Trevillian, the curator, was interested in including in the Resolution: from Digital to Cloth exhibition was some the Playing False Exhibition panels. Annie felt they demonstrated how textile practitioners have been using the technology for quite a while. I created the Playing False exhibit in 1997 and I must admit it feels strange to see them hung in a gallery again.
Playing False is a series in which I explored how women represented themselves on ‘home pages’. I created each pane by taking a screen shot of an individual’s Home page, with the owner’s permission. I then heavily manipulated these images using Photoshop, and I printed those images on cotton fabric. To each print I then added embroidery using hand dyed threads. The exhibit was in two parts. One part of the physical pieces in the gallery and the second part online. On the Playing False website visitors can read the responses of the women who took part. The idea is to highlight how these women used the internet to make social connections. The website alos encouraged people to visit the original ‘home pages’. The Playing False website looks a little dated now but I have kept it preserved as it was presented at the time.
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