Special thanks to Renne Emiko Brock-Richmond for sharing insight relating to digital and fiber issues and Eve Andrée Laramée for an informative explanation of her work A Permutational Unfolding.
Image: From the Reaction and Reflection series by Renne Emiko Brock-Richmond
URL: http://www.uniqueasyou.com/color/color_focus.htm
The work of Renne Emiko Brock-Richmond is an inspiration to a synthesis between digital and fiber media. Furthermore, Renne offered important clues and suggested resources that propelled my research.
Excerpts from an interview:
WA: I have seen your work that is all digital and work that is all textile. How do you reconcile these two mediums?
REB-R: All my work is dealing with equality and diversity. The most immediate signal of identifying one self as a distinct individual is though appearance. The content of most my work is about appearance and identity. Apparel is identity skin. We put on clothing that transforms how we are perceived. I like to reflect the tendency of people to focus on the exterior first, they don't look further to what is really there in front of them. In my reflections, I balance the lone perceptions with the equal variety of humans' makeup. The concepts of equality and diversity are easily linked and interwoven through the digital and textile tools.
WA: How is working with a computer different than working with the loom.
REB-R: It's the same machine. The loom was the first computer anyway. People forget that working a keyboard and mouse use hands.
WA: Do you feel that your work has concerns in common with other contemporary artists that use both digital and textile mediums?
REB-R: There is a tendency with artists who deal with both textiles and digital work to be very interested in the idea of touch and memory.
WA: What would you like to say about motivation?
REB-B: I am motivated by our evolution as a species. Our brains have evolved enough to have forethought of our actions and the ability to clearly communicate our insights. As an artist and observer, I am motivated to report on my investigations of our differences and similarities as humans. I attempt to illustrate these ideas in a colorful and bright way.
WA: Finally, how would you relate your work to ideas and experiences of social environments and connectivity?
REB-R: Social environments are created because of connections. Those connections are related to identity of oneself. My work is about the acceptance of individuals and the affiliation to the whole. I look for true icon of self, not a disguised screen name. Honest connections cannot be made under false facades.
WA: Oh, and anything about your palm organizer?
REB-R: It is wearing one's wealth.
While web searching with keywords Jacquard, Ada and art, I discovered Eve Andrée Laramée's installation, A Permutational Unfolding. Correspondence with her fleshed out the deep technological and symbolic content of this work.
Excerpts from Eve Andrée Laramée:
"What particularly struck me was the relationship between the decorative arts (weaving & textiles), the performing arts and entertainment and the development of programmable machines which led to the computer. In my installation, I connect this history to the invention (in 1949 at MIT) of woven memory cores for the Whirlwind and other mid-20th Century computers My intention was to emphasize the fact that digital technology, and the computer, considered by most to be a feature of contemporary culture, is a actually part of a centuries-old history, intricately linked to the decorative arts (by way of the Jacquard loom), the performing arts (by way of the history of mechanical musical instruments) and entertainment devices (by way of automata). I want to reconsider the forgotten materiality of the "digital" by retrieving the etymology of the word, and its relationship to the hand and to hand-work. In doing so, I wish to make manifest the invisible web or network of communication and transmission of information embedded in the panorama of history."
Image: Eve Andrée Laramée, A Permutational Unfolding, 1999. Installation comprised of artist- designed Jacquard woven brocade in cotton and rayon yarns used for draperies and chair upholstery, hand-painted wall panels, gouache paintings, historical objects from public and private collections. MIT List Visual Arts Center. Photo credit: Charles Mayer.
URL: http://www.home.earthlink.net/~wander