It feels as though in this world of extreme binaries there is only feminine and masculine, of course, this is in a plethora of ways, but this post is focused on practice. Historically, textiles is a feminine practice and practices that involve working with hardware electronics such as physical computing are viewed as a masculine practice. These ways of viewing the intersection of practice and gender of course to many of us feel outdated, however, their relevance to our personal belief systems around gender is somewhat redundant when we consider how these historical expectations of practice still show relevance today.
In a 2019 conference paper practitioners and authors explore how E-textiles could be used to encourage gender diversity within embedded audio systems. “Historically, women have been excluded from engineering and computer science disciplines, and interactive audio is no exception. Relatively few women are involved with the designing and building of embedded audio systems with traditional tools such as microprocessors, but when embedded audio systems are built using e-textiles, much larger proportions of women become engaged with technology.” (Bin, A.S., Skach, S., Stewart, R.1). This raises the question of ‘why?‘ to me… Why do women feel more comfortable working with embedded audio systems when its in embedded with textiles? I feel as though they are speaking directly to me, or directly about me somehow. It was a decision that I made to use E-textiles as a method for physical computing and I could have easily chosen a more traditional method but there was something unknown that urged me to work with textiles. I still do not know what that something is.
Collaborators Morrow and Belford explore the “binary relationships might trap women into one form of practice” (Morrow, R. Belford, P. 400), the relationship they are referring to here is likely to be the binary view of gender. Textiles being a female-dominated industry has historically not been interconnected with other more ‘masculine’ practices. TactilityFactory (one of Morrow and Belford’s collaborations) is merging textile practice with architecture. TactilityFactory, “has at its core just such an oppositional device: to make hard things soft.” (Morrow, R. Belford, P. 400), by combining textile practices with a practice such as architecture or physical computing the boundaries of the (other) practice are challenged and reimagined. By softening these practices we can change the experience of the interaction and the way audiences interpret the work. Subverting the typical use of these practices can create a forward-thinking type of design creating new possibilities for artistic expression.
I find the description of textiles as ‘soft works’ appropriate to the nature of the practice. To me, this indicates dedication and care in the process of making, the artist must work delicately and with patience, undoing any wrong stitch and repeatedly rethreading the needle. These small aspects of the practice hold significance through the way this knowledge is passed through generations of women. “Standardization drives us to think of textile politics in homogeneous ways. It not only forgets the labour that produces the pattern and the affective–material–embodied practices that it entangles; the mistakes it carries; and the efforts and frustrations that are involved in unravelling and mending them, but also forgets the knowledge-making practices that constitute them. “ (Pérez-Bustos, T., Sánchez-Aldana, E. and Chocontá-Piraquive, A. 374). By merging textiles with another practice we can move away from the homogony by learning the textile practice in a way that can be applied to our own. When adapting a practice to merge with our own we must understand why and how each decision is made, in order to make appropriate decisions for the desired outcome. Is sonic E-textiles a sort of soft hardware?
By considering textiles as a means for metaphor and artistic expression we allow stories and meaning to be unveiled in a different way. Prehaps women feel as though they can be more vulnerable when working with a material that is mainly sustained by other women. “It is as if the textile material metaphor used to understand the feminist politics of textile activism should be one in which the errors in the making, the broken fragile fibres, and the chaos can be visible and not standardised” (Pérez-Bustos, T., Sánchez-Aldana, E. and Chocontá-Piraquive, A. 374), this quote resonated with me as the fragility and imperfections of the sound object I have made become part of the meaning too. I am making something rooted in my experience, so the process becomes the art. Some of the sewing is barely holding the material together, it wouldn’t take much for it to unravel, similarly, it wouldn’t take much for me to unravel, to be triggered into a spiral of every instance in which I was the victim of a man’s power trip.
Below is a journal entry, I was thinking about how the generations of women in my family have all worked with textiles as a practice, just in different ways for different reasons. At a later date, I want to work with textiles to explore this intergenerational experience. It’s short and sweet but I felt like here is a nice place to share it.
References:
Bin, A.S., Skach, S., Stewart, R. (2018) Making Grooves with Needles: Using e-textiles to Encourage Gender Diversity in Embedded Audio Systems Design pp.1-8
Morrow, R. and Belford, P. (2012) ‘Fabrication and Ms Conduct: Scrutinising Practice Through Feminist Theory’, Architectural Theory Review, 17(2–3), pp. 399–415.
Pérez-Bustos, T., Sánchez-Aldana, E. and Chocontá-Piraquive, A. (2019) ‘Textile Material Metaphors to Describe Feminist Textile Activisms: From Threading Yarn, to Knitting, to Weaving Politics’, TEXTILE, 17(4), pp. 368–377.