Arts Thread

Experimental costumes incorporating digitally printed fabrics, inspired by experiences within VR.

Through a process of LiDAR scanning materials with a phone app, simple pieces of fabric or foam become habitable landscapes. Screenshots of these dimensional scans are layered, revealing glowing light sources from abysmal depths. Inkjet prints on photo paper 2022–2023

Tactile literacy declines as we interface with the world through digital screens. Because of this, our ability to appreciate our surroundings, connect to each other, and understand ourselves is impacted. Though they dull our sense of materiality, screens also behave like fabric. They respond to our fingertips through a pinch or swipe, rippling and unfolding to mirror textile behavior. With our contemporary notion of materiality blurred between physical and digital, I propose the adoption of haptic visuality—a tactile way of seeing—to build greater awareness of our sense of touch in digital spaces. I respond to materials through a cycle of physical and digital processes. Manipulating, capturing, and rendering are tools to distort materiality between virtual and non-virtual worlds. Surface manipulation techniques such as smocking, tucking, and pleating echo the screen manipulation techniques of pinching, swiping, and tapping, sculpting the fabric’s surface into navigable architecture. These small, cumulative gestures forge passageways to new worlds and sensory experiences. How can a fabric’s surface offer the real dimension and deep transformation of a digital screen? By interpreting these intimate digital worlds into physical space, I hope to put people in visceral contact with their fading sense of touch, inciting an urgency to reconnect to materials, environments, and oneself.

Flatbed scans of a ubiquitous reusable bag morph into a landscape of flowing water bodies. An experiment in shading a transparent printed image with thread. Digital print on silk, thread 2021

As a singular unit, thread symbolizes connection and wholeness, entangling all forms of life. In this textile ballet, arrangements of scraps and textile waste form patterns resonant of nature or the body. The versatility of these dancing strings serves to highlight our own disconnect with the surrounding environment. Inkjet prints on photo paper, digital prints on silk 2021–2022