JACQUARD: DIGITAL WEAVING

Catalog description

(Slashed with ARTS 55300 )(Repeatable for credit) The digitally interfaced jacquard goes beyond the limitations of the floor loom, allowing for direct control of individual threads to enable image materialization. Incorporating mediation and handwork, students explore the historical and conceptual interstices of digital technology, weaving and picture-making. This advanced course investigates the tensions between digital interfaces and material outputs while engaging their cooperative possibilities. Inquiries into the implications of aesthetics, skill and technology are explored alongside the relationship of cloth and image. A vocabulary of woven constructions, patterns, colors and textures are developed using the digital jacquard loom. Coursework incorporates the computer, handweaving, reading, research and critical dialogue. A personal laptop computer is required for this course. We reclaim the jacquard as a hand loom to articulate form that can only emerge through the confrontation and synthesis of body and technology. The weaver embodies the cyborg. Students who do not meet the prerequisites may register for the course with special approval. Please speak to an advisor for more information.