Coded Cloth: A 21st-Century Revolution in Art, Fashion and Design

The Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.
---Ada Lovelace

A single connecting thread winds through 300 years of textile and computing history. John Kay's invention of the flying shuttle and Joseph Marie Jacquard's binary punch cards and loom head led to mathematicians Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage's design and programming for an Analytical Engine, the direct predecessor of our modern-day mechanical computer. Without the warp and weft of textile technology, the hardware and software that enable today's ubiquitous information-processing revolution would never have emerged. In the early 21st century, the newest hybrid art forms of embedded computing and wearable technology are generating creations that would, until only recently, be beyond imagination. Take for example the luscious wearable artworks of London-based Turkish Cypriot fashion designer Hussein Chalayan---including a short animation projected through 15,600 LEDS and Swarovski crystals integrated into one dress. Chalayan, like many creatives today, works seamlessly across art, fashion and design, appearing to be equally at home showing at the Venice Biennale or Paris Fashion Week.

This blurring of delineated arenas of practice, and the entwining of the latest technologies into established realms, is not new. In 1956, Japanese avant-garde artist Atsuko Tanaka updated the rich textures and intricacies of the traditional kimono with the dazzling colored lights of the modern world. Her Electric Dress was composed entirely of light bulbs of all shapes, sizes and intense colors and a plethora of connected electrical cords. It was however a little dangerous as daily attire, appearing mostly as a sculptural form and recently being one of the central works exhibited at Documenta XII.

In summer 2007, in order to facilitate such interdisciplinary experimentation in Australia, Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) initiated the reSkin Wearable Technology Lab in collaboration with Craft Australia and the Australian National University School of Art. Twenty-one media and sound artists; programmers; jewelers; and object, textile and fashion designers immersed themselves into an intensive three-week research and development environment with six facilitators [1].

One of the many outcomes of reSkin was a physical exhibition titled Coded Cloth, held at the Samstag Museum of Art, University of South Australia, in Adelaide (29 October--19 December 2008). The exhibition drew from artists and designers who attended reSkin along with practitioners whose work combined age-old craftsmanship with innovation. In this Leonardo Gallery, we see a sample of that exhibition [2], wherein artists used traditional textile practices such as weaving, stitching, embroidery, printing and dyeing. However, the different electro-mechanical or biological properties of their materials produce aesthetically charming and complex works that have both practical properties and surprising functionality.

Elliat Rich's elegantly designed reactive furniture piece, the Yala Sofa, blossoms in the company of others. Working in Alice Springs, Rich employs the motif of the sustaining bush food of the Pintupi people from the Australian Central Desert, the Bush Potato or Yala, to illustrate the importance of connection and community. The Yala flowers printed on the sofa's fabric use a thermochromatic ink and thus remain invisible until the heat from the bodies of those sitting on the sofa "activates" the ink and the flowers appear---just as the Yala plant blooms after life-giving desert rains.

The gathering of food and weaving of cloth---traditional women's business in many cultures---also provide opportunities to fashion close-knit social groups, and it is not surprising that most of the pioneering and prominent figures in the field of wearable technologies today are women. Rich beautifully illustrates her philosophy of designing sustainable "objects that celebrate the poetry of humble pleasures." She understands that sitting together and sharing a cup of tea and a conversation is the invaluable emotional nourishment that grows and sustains our relationships, our community and our culture.

Aotearoan artist Gina Matchitt incorporates the traditional Māori art form of Tukutuku patterning (cross-stitch weaving) used for wall panels within the Wharenui (meeting house). Her evocative 1.8-meter Tukutuku wall panels are constructed with recycled black and grey computer keys instead of dried stalks of Kākaho, the creamy-gold flower stalks of Toetoe grass, and Kākaka, long straight fern stalks, or wooden laths of Rimu or Tōtara. Here Matchitt explores the theme of much of her work---"to challenge her own boundaries about what is acceptable or not within the sphere of communicating her Maori concepts to a wider audience" [3].

Embedded puzzle-like in the visual patterning of Matchitt's panels are Whakatauki (Maori proverbs). When deciphered they provide narratives and lessons on how Maori customary knowledge was distributed and exchanged. They can be read as Wikipedia entries, illustrating how contemporary communications echo those of another time and era. Encoding the cloth itself, Alyce Santoro weaves fabric from recycled audiocassette tape. Her Sonic Fabric was inspired by two things: the "tell-tales" she saw as a child: tiny wind indicators used on sailboats that are often made from small strands of cassette tape---and from which she imagined she could hear music playing; and fluttering Tibetan prayer flags---squares of fabric silkscreened with mantras and hung outdoors, where their blessings can be activated by the wind. Alyce combined these two very different cultural concepts to "create a fabric with sounds I considered sacred woven into it." Santoro's 5-meter Sonic Sails gallery installation is a "ship" that sails on a swell of sound. As the cassette tape retains its magnetic quality through the weaving process, her sonic fabric actually emits sound when a cassette tape head (the piece inside a Walkman that touches the tape) is run across it. In addition to creating sculptural objects and desirable designer goods like handbags and ties, she has sewn the fabric into funky frocks that musicians can "play" onstage, mixing the sounds live to create a totally unique experience.

In what may seem like a science-fiction scenario, bio-artist Donna Franklin has created a living garment---a dress that grows! This dynamic cloth is created from the prolific, non-infectious, non-hazardous Western Australian orange bracket fungi. Her Fibre Reactive dress is a mortal entity---its living surface gradually thickens from soft white into an orange skin, with the development of a fruiting body signaling maturity. The dress as shown in these Gallery photos was three months old; eventually it will start to die at around five years of age.

According to Franklin, "the experience of wearing the living garment feels uncanny. . . . Its soft suede-like texture feels like an extension of your own skin . . . a primordial link to the origin of clothes, when our ancestors first wore the skins of other animals." The glowing and seemingly floating hybrid Fibre Reactive dress challenges us to consider how we as a society commodify and manipulate other living entities and how that will manifest itself in the not-too-distant future as the physical and cultural impact of biotechnology unfolds. Exquisite tailoring hides a high-tech secret in an elegant dress jacket by Newcastle fashion designers High Tea with Mrs. Woo (sisters Rowena, Juliana and Angela Foong). The stylishly feminine contemporary traveler can be free from unnecessary layers of thick coats and scarves, as her skin is warmed by heating circuits embedded within her elegant Hidden jacket pockets. High Tea with Mrs. Woo describe their travel wear for the 21st-century woman as "fashion with secret powers . . . prepared and invincible." Quite often when electronic functions are integrated into fashion for the commercial world, the aesthetic is more masculine, androgynous and/or sporty. This piece highlights a feminine touch---allowing a woman's needs and desires to be met with delicious concepts and delightful design. Each of these marvelously intricate and unique artworks seamlessly combines traditional skills with innovation and creativity to express the philosophy and personality of its creator(s). The embedded electronics, interactive textiles, encoded knowledge and living fabrics produce a surprising, astounding and inspirational glimpse into our coded future, while highlighting an integrated approach to art, design, sustainability, community and culture.

Melinda Rackham
E-mail: curator@subtle.net
Curator, Coded Cloth Exhibition
Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT)
29 October--19 December 2008
Adelaide, Australia

References and Notes

1. Thanks to Erica Green, Director of the Samstag Museum of Art, for her foresight in commissioning me to curate the Coded Cloth exhibition; curatorial intern Angella Mackey (Toronto); and, at ANAT, Communication Manager Amanda Matulick and researcher Warren Veljanovski, who significantly contributed to the ideas discussed in this text and the realization of the Coded Cloth exhibition.

2. Gina Matchitt's Tukutuku project, although part of Coded Cloth's original curatorial plan, unfortunately could not be installed in the gallery. It is good to be able to reunite the work with others that resonate with it.

3. Nigel Borell, "E kare, You're So Colonised!" 2007, www.marynewtongallery.com/exhibition.php?pageid=exhibition&exhibition_id=68.

Updated 5 November 2009