_textile spaces
inhabiting the interface
_ materia
_ especialidad
Soft Scuplture
Textile instalation
Textile art
_Textile spaces: inhabiting the interface:
Textile Spaces: Inhabiting the Interface is the latest publication by the research group dx5 digital & graphic art_research, authored by Dr. Sara Coleman and edited by Dr. Ana Soler. The book proposes a reflection on textile spaces, specifically through textile installations in contemporary art. The publication investigates the relationship between body and space through “textile modes”. This approach is based on the textile technological model proposed by philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their book A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1980). Through this framework, the author hypothesizes that textiles reflect a structure of thought occurring through a material relationship between body and space, where the fabric serves as an interface. The book analyzes more than 200 works by pioneering and contemporary artists who have been working with textiles through their processuality and hapticity. It highlights how “textile modes” function as a relational mode of thought and as a spatial interface.
_the origin
Textile spaces: inhabiting the interface It arises from the adaptation of the doctoral thesis defended at the University of Vigo in February 2023 by Dr. Sara Martínez Pérez-Coleman, under the supervision of Dr. Ana Soler, which received the “Sobresaliente Cum Laude” distinction and an International Mention. The book is published in 2024 with the support of the dx5 research group and Dardo, funded by the Xunta de Galicia, Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Universidade, through the Program for the Consolidation and Structuring of Competitive Research Units in the Competitive Reference Groups category.
_the concept
Following the relational logic embedded in “textile modes” and under a materialist approach, this essay begins with the idea that textiles reflect a structure of thought materialized through the relationship between body and space, where the fabric serves as an interface. This conception is grounded not only in the analysis of numerous installation and sculptural works but also in the author’s own artistic practice (documented in this publication), which has served as a foundation for a study where theory and praxis are inseparably interwoven. It is, therefore, a study that arises from “making” and understands textiles through their complex interwoven nature, presenting fabric as both a process and a material language that is relational and spatial. This exploration ultimately proposes a processual ontology of fabric.
“[…] Conceiving textiles through their processuality and materiality, this essay proposes to understand ‘textile modes’ as powerful machinic operators of multiple textualities, generating and conceptualizing a complex and interwoven modus operandi of structural ambivalence and transdisciplinary nature.”
_Content of the book
The first part of the book immerses us in the spatial processuality of textiles to establish a reflection and reconceptualization of fabric in contemporary terms. Initially, it lays the foundations of fabric as a complex interrelational system and, subsequently, links it with various disciplinary fields, such as philosophy, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and writing. Thus, this essay adopts a transdisciplinary approach.
Next, in order to analyze the interrelations between body and space through ‘textile modes,’ a vectorial system is proposed, composed of three vectors: the body-space vector, the skin-fabric vector, and the fabric-garment-house vector. These vectors are used to study various works that highlight the interrelations between them. This exploration ultimately leads the author to conceptualize installation textiles as a symbolic fourth skin, where all the previously mentioned vectors are interwoven.
Finally, an exploration is conducted of numerous contemporary installation works that generate haptic spaces through “textile modes.” Without intending to categorize or compartmentalize the analyzed works, this exploration is organized around three models: the reticular model, the rhizomatic model, and the network model. These models establish non-linear connections between each other and ultimately lead us to the question: “Are we currently witnessing a new textile mode that transcends the network model?”
Through this publication, we embark on a journey that takes us from the tectonic to the topological, from the reticular to the rhizomatic, in a shift that marks the transition from the static to the dynamic, from the rigid and structured to the soft, flexible, and modulable. In short, it is a passage from the striated, sedentary space to the smooth, nomadic space (in Deleuzian-Guattarian terms), ultimately reaching the interweaving that occurs between them.