Last night was the opening of the Gallery Project‘s show “Imaging the Future” (and also my birthday!). In March, the curators asked me to create a piece that examined what clothing might be like in the future. My response was to a.) design a method for consumers to download patterns for custom-tailored clothing from the internet, and b.) create a digitally custom-tailored dress out of laser-cut wool felt. You can read more about the project, entitled “Cyber Fiber,” in my artist statement below. For now enjoy these pictures from the reception and I promise to create a more complete presentation for the project by the end of June.

Artist Statement:

Mass production has changed the ways that humans design, make, and consume products. In the past all goods were made individually by the hands of skilled craftsmen. Then in the late 19th century, the assembly line dramatically changed the way stuff is made; cheap, uniform products became readily available, creating a novel distance between consumer and product. The post-World War II manufacturing boom exponentially increased the speed and reach of that change. Now in the internet age, we are moving to a place somewhere in between the completely hand-made items of the distant past and the mass-manufactured products of the past century. The internet has broadened the market available to craftsmen, and allowed them to sell their wares globally. At the same time, rapid prototyping has facilitated a seemingly contradictory change that allows mass manufacturers to produce custom pieces for each of their customers. The Cyber Fiber project envisions a future in which consumers have the resources to download and fabricate their own customized products and upload their own designs for others to use. If people wanted this dress, they could go online, upload a digital model of their bodies to a clothing a website, have the pattern of their choice custom tailored to their 3D model, then download the pattern to cut and fabricate the garment themselves. Though not quite this automated, the fabrication process for the piece on display was very similar to the process above. In this case, once the pattern was generated, it was used to quickly laser-cut a 1/4″ thick sheet of 100% wool felt. Once cut, the felt pieces were equipped with snap buttons and clipped together to complete the garment.