The DXARTS SoftLab is a studio and an online platform whose mission is to examine the role of workmanship in artistic research, to redefine the use of crafting in the post-digital era, and to explore the body as an interface of control and resistance. It is part of the Department of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Exploring generative narratives and interfaces through machine embroidery and AI.
Developing new workflows for CNC machines often requires writing code to translate different representations of data into a format understood by the machine. How might we do this in the embroidery machine ecosystem, where file formats and machine software are generally proprietary and closed-source?
I wonder, if we were all Hermit Crabs, what would our houses sound like when interacting with rain? The idea of making a percussion system portable feels imperative, so as to explore different circumstances, specifically geographies, that could eventually turn into an artistic study of the rhythm of rainfall. It feels right to aim at constructing a system that can be inhabited and worn and the same time, an architecture similar to the house of a Hermit Crab.
There are several reasons why CNC milling remains a tricky fabrication method. One of them is a fundamental design assumption at the core of CNC machines and CAM softwares: that the user seeks to realize a design that has been developed on the drawing table, not in the interaction with the machines. The machine only executes the design, the plan.
Eat This Cake If It Makes You Happy explores food as a metaphor, as an emotional shelter, as a portal through which one may get away and get to many places.
Virtual artist talk at VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University) Arts Department of Kinetic Imaging
‘Ventriloquist Ontology’ explores the limits of control and points of hybridization between the human and the machine through the relationship of a performer and a wearable entity. This ventriloquist modular soft entity speaks through text generated using a GPT-2 language model, trained on a dataset of texts around biopolitics, algo-governance, the surveillanced body, and queer theory.
Paper presentation at the ACM Creativity & Cognition 2021 conference
Heat Quit aims to display data related to sexual violence in the city of Seattle along with examining our current state of data visualization and representation to find a more embodied and appreciative form of interacting with data.
Virtual artist talk, and guest performance by Lisa Simpson on her performance persona Agente Costura and the intentions, ethics and ideas behind working with diy techniques, upcycled artifacts and secondhand garments
Virtual talk and book presentation by Angelika Strohmayer on the intersection of technologies, craft, social justice, and feminisms
Virtual artist talk by Mika Satomi on e-textiles, wearable technology, and artificial neural networks in the context of DXARTS 472 Mechatronic Art, Design and Fabrication II
An e-textile piece discussing the shame that surrounds female reproductive health.
An e-textile exploration of the concepts of solitude and isolation.
Fifth meeting of the Wearable Narratives DRG focused on sharing student ideas and prototypes
Online event curated and moderated by Abby Aresty and Rachel Gibson at SEAMUS 2021 (Society for Electroacoustic Music in the United States), with the participation of Patricia Cadavid, Jess Rowland, Sam Topley, Asha Tamirisa and Afroditi Psarra
Fourth meeting of the Wearable Narratives DRG focused on discussing ideas about individual projects and looking at reference projects for inspiration and for building a work methodology
Third meeting of the Wearable Narratives DRG focused on handmade sensors and understanding how the different properties of the e-textile materials that be used to create variable resistance
Virtual artist talk by Maria Castellanos on wearable technology and interspecies communication in the context of DXARTS 472 Mechatronic Art, Design and Fabrication II
Second meeting of the Wearable Narratives DRG was spent talking about e-textile materials and learning basic stitching and soft-circuit techniques
