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CLUSTER CRAFTS FAIR

Our perception of the human body is ever changing and this new millennium is no different. It is no surprise then that artists are increasingly reinterpreting the materiality and function of textiles as a way to comment on the new roles and perceptions of the human body. The following are just two of the many exciting recent developments in the world of ‘intelligent textiles’.

With a global economy now thoroughly digitised, it seems counterintuitive that more traditional materials, such as textiles, are enjoying something of a renaissance among artists and collectors alike. Despite being almost as old as humanity itself, textile is quickly becoming one of the most exciting materials of contemporary artistic expression. Textiles cover us and keep us warm; they protect us against natural forces and are in constant and intimate contact with our bodies. Textiles are also an adornment; an expression of our inner personality projected to the outside world. As such, it is at once the inner-most and outer-most layer which informs the world of who we are. It is perhaps this ancient and innate relationship between artist, textile, and user that holds the many unexplored possibilities that are drawing artists back to this medium. In the white heat of twenty-first century technological advancement, textiles are becoming intelligent. These smart textiles have abundant prospective applications, such as the capacity to communicate with electronic devices, store and transport physical and chemical energy, convert their material properties and defend the wearer against a range of environmental circumstances.

Their intelligent textile projects, such as Folding Frequencies and All Direction is Curved, All Motion is Spiral use textiles and magnets - as the fabric billows and moves around in space, the position of the magnets changes and triggering an electromagnetic field which is translated into sound broadcast into the room through speakers, thus the unseen field becomes a tangible presence which hangs in the room as perceptible sound. The fabric becomes a conductive object in this work, it moves and creates sound by itself and so gains a new, enlivened function. It calls into question the unexplored and invisible layers in the world, most of which surround us in our everyday existence, much like fabrics surround our bodies, but of which we are almost totally unaware. The textile is here made more than just a piece of fabric, but a tool through which our sensory experiences can be augmented and aided. It is a way of sensing and engaging with the environment that hangs at the threshold of perception.

EJTECH is a multidisciplinary studio, born from the collaboration of Hungarian Judit Eszter Karpati and Mexican Esteban de la Torre. EJTECH projects utilise experimental interfaces, electronic textiles and augmented materials. Their practice is characterised by works which investigate the relationship between the human body and its physical surroundings through sensorial experiences, often highlighting the fallibility of human perception. Textile, sound, light, and space are all combined in their works, often exhibiting a more scientific approach to art.

EJTECH, Folding Frequencies, 2019, © The artists

Similarly, Berlin-based artist Alanna Lynch explores the relationship of the human body with its environment through fabrics which are composed of biological materials. Using symbiotic colonies of bacteria and yeasts growing on kombucha mushrooms, her performance project Gut Feelings consists of Lynch dipping her hand in a vat of brown liquid containing these microbes. Through the process of fermentation, the bacteria and yeast produce a cellulose material that, whilst viscous when wet, can adapt to any shape and can be dried to use as a type of biological textile. Beyond the literally physical relationship between Lynch and her microbial colony, she is also reflecting on the presence of a microbiome on our bodies, a type of biological clothing which acts as a protective barrier against external environmental factors. Given the crucial interconnectedness of microbiomes, the gut and the brain making up the complex system that is the body, the use of bacteria in art can be seen as offering a radical potential to undo the subject/object tension and question the role of the non-human within the human body. Beyond its artistic function, her bacteria clothes could perhaps provide an answer to the problem of sustainable and ecological clothing. 

Projects like these may sound futuristic, but in fact they respond to contemporary visions of the body and the problems we face with regards to digitalisation and sustainability. The question now is whether such textiles will truly become part of our everyday lives, revolutionising the textile-human relationship for the needs of the twenty-first century.