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.

The openings on Friday and Saturday were great! I got so many good responses, am therefor inspired to push forward with my work. Even though I am not really sure what my work is anymore. Mostly it was a great relief to know that school is finally coming to an end. I think all of the seniors I talked to sympathized with that relief. My mother, however, had the opposite reaction; feeling down that I will no longer be in school. Here are a few pictures from the show…

Ann Arbor was beautiful. Rainy, but beautiful.

Some strangers with my triolin

Yesterday, Commshow opened at the Duderstadt Video Studio. Things ran surprisingly well, except fo the massive winter storm that dumped ten inches of snow on Ann Arbor. After our recording session, Nate and I had to go from North Campus to the dance studio on central campus.  What is typically a 15 minute round trip, on this occasion, took more than two hours. At one point, we were on an icy hill behind an Ann Arbor bus that could not gain traction and was slowly fishtailing down the hill towards us. Jimmy Johns made and NPR made the danger of the trip more bearable.