In an era of increasingly available digital resources, many textile designers and makers find themselves at an interesting juncture between traditional craft processes and newer digital technologies. Highly specialized craft/design practitioners may now elect to make use of digital processes in their work, but often choose not to abandon craft skills fundamental to their practice, and aim to balance the complex connection between craft and digital processes. The essays collected here consider this transition from the viewpoint of aesthetic opportunity arising in the textile designer’s hands-on experimentation with material and digital technologies available in the present.
Craft provides the foundations for thinking within the design and production of textiles, and as such may provide some clues in the transition to creative and thoughtful use of current and future digital technologies. Within the framework of current challenges relating to sustainable development, globalization, and economic constraints it is important to interrogate and question how we might go about using established and emerging technologies in textiles in a positive manner.
Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Foreword
J.R. Campbell, Kent State University, USA
Introduction
Faith Kane, Loughborough University, UK, Nithikul Nimkulrat, Estonian Academy of Art, Estonia, and Kerry Walton, Loughborough University, UK
Part One: Digital Technologies Informing Craft
Crafting Textiles in the Digital Age: Printed Textiles
Cathy Treadaway, Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK
Digital Embroidery Practice
Tina Downes, Nottingham Trent University, UK, Tessa Acti, Independent Artist, UK, and Donna Rumble-Smith, Independent Artist, UK
Textile Illusions – Patterns of Light and the Woven White Screen
Anne Louise Bang, Kolding School of Design, Denmark, Helle Trolle, Kolding School of Design, Denmark, and Anne Mette Larsen, Independent Researcher, Denmark
The Intelligence of the Hand
Monika Auch, Visual Artist, The Netherlands
Part Two: Craft Intervention in Digital Process
The Digital Print Room – A Bespoke Approach to Print Technology
Helen Ryall, University of Huddersfield, UK and Penny Macbeth, Manchester School of Art, UK
Maintaining the Human Touch – Exploring ‘Crafted Control’ within an Advanced Textile Production Interface
Martin Woolley, Coventry University, UK and Rob Huddleston, Birmingham City University, UK
Garment ID: Textile Patterning Techniques for Hybrid Functional Clothing
Kerri Akiwowo, Loughborough University, UK
Processes within Digitally Printed Textile Design
Susan Carden, Northumbria University, UK
Part Three: Craft Thinking in a Digital Age
Hand-Knitting in a Digital Era
Josephine Steed, Robert Gordon University, UK
Hidden Values and Human Inconsistencies in Hand-Stitching Processes
Emma Shercliff, Arts University Bournemouth, UK
Perspectives on Making and Viewing: Generating Meaning through Textiles
Sonja Andrews, University of Manchester, UK
Closely Held Secrets: Embodied Knowledge in Digitally Crafted Textiles
Katherine Townsend, Nottingham Trent University, UK
Index
