Panel: WEAVE, KNIT, STITCH & BITCH – Constructing New Perspectives in Craft, October 15 2014, Rotterdam (NL)

with Ellen Harlizius-Klück (Copenhagen University), Ebru Kurbak (University of Applied Arts Vienna,) & Martin Schneider (Bauhaus-University Weimar). Moderated by Roel Roscam Abbing.

Wednesday October 15th 17:30 – 20:00
WORM Institute for Avant Garde Recreation
Boomgaardsstraat 71, Rotterdam

Textile is women’s work. Textile spurred industrial revolutions. Textile is the symbol of disenfranchised labour. Textile is the expression of identity, class, and taste. Textile is an inherently digital practice?

As an extremely loaded medium, textile also happens to be a choice material for an alternative maker movement. In this second Digital Craft debate, an artist, philosopher/mathematician, and a computer scientist team up to unravel bits of textile’s storied past and weave some threads to its potential future. Ellen Harlizius-Klück traces the binary principle back to ancient Greek arithmetic and loom technology and demonstrates the difficulties of unravelling their codes. Ebru Kurbak frames this historical reading of textile and technological culture to draw counterfactual scenarios of the craftsman as catalyst of the electronic industry. Martin Schneider shows current examples of how software can be used as tools to extend, complement and transform traditional handicraft, as well as how handicraft can be used as a tools for teaching digital literacy.

This debate is coordinated by the Digital Craft programme, in collaboration with Open Design, of the Willem de Kooning Academy. It welcomes 12 visiting Smart Textile students from Baltimore’s Maryland Institute College of Art, and is open for all who want to uncover curious and controversial things made of strings.

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