Resolution: from Digital to Cloth is was opened yesterday.
Often in casual conversation people are surprised to hear that a textile practioner 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 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 show. As readers here know, I am interested in the connections between textiles and digital technology. The series that Annie Trevillian the curator, was interested in including in the exhibition was some panels from the Playing False simply because they demonstrated how textile practitioners have been using the technology for quite a while. I created Playing False in 97 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’. Each panel was created by taking a screen shot of an individual’s Home page, with the owner’s permission. These images were then heavily manipulated and changed in Photoshop, and printed on cotton fabric. To each print I then added embroidery using hand dyed threads. A website accompanies this work in which visitors can read these womens reaction to the internet and visit the original ‘home pages’.
