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- Title of Exhibit Proposal:
The Spatial Garment (Ref #245)
- Date:
- 29-01-2007 18:18:17
- Status:
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Accepted
- Rating:
- 8
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Details:
- Background
Since 1998 my practice-led research has focused on the integration of traditional and digital crafting techniques to create printed textiles inspired by the symbiotic relationship between fabric and form. My PhD Transforming Shape: ?A simultaneous approach to the body, cloth and print synthesising CAD with manual methods? challenged general 2D orientated practice by recognising the (body) form as a positive presence within the textile designing process. The research built on Sonia Delaunay?s practice of creating Tissus Simultané, by considering how fabric quality and the form could influence the origination and configuration of textile imagery in relation to the garment shape. Printed garments were explored and redefined as sculptural or architectural spatial forms that conducted print around the body in contrasting ways.
Crafting Context
In common with other designer-makers who received their formative training in a ?pre-CAD? environment, it seemed natural to combine knowledge of physical making with CAD/CAM, rather than seek to leave such skills behind. The aim to create surface imagery from a 3D perspective was achieved through manual and digital methods of image capture and manipulation. I adapted the cyanotype (direct printing) process, creating light sensitive toiles, which were wrapped and unwrapped to emerge as blueprinted shrouds.
Integrated CAD software provided the interface for these hand crafted ?cyanoforms? to be digitally fabricated. The photographic characteristics of CG (computer graphic) and inkjet fabric printing facilitated the translation of a wide range of sophisticated 3D patterning concepts based on garment modelling. New visual qualities included trompe l?oiel effects of pinning, pleating, folding and draping as well as unexpected outcomes such as the cloth?s ability to hold the memory of its manipulation. I became interested in how I could use the computer to: simulate the act of making or ?flow?; incorporate illusions of movement to exaggerate the fluid appearance of the fabric and blur the boundary between ?cloth and contour?.
Pieces
The exhibition statements will encompass a series of digitally printed textiles based on experiments with sculptural and architectural shapes that interact with the body in different ways. Innovative mark-making strategies will be developed by exploring the relationships between fabric and form through dialogues that interpret the dynamic drape of cloth, in movement and at rest. The work will question the notion of printed textiles as wallpaper for the garment/body by introducing abstract imagery informed by static installations and choreographed movements in space. Video footage of the pieces will support the aesthetic inspiration and realisation of the imagery.
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Reviewer Comments: