Digital Encounters

This work was presented at Digital Encounters, the final exhibition in the Crysalis Moving Textiles exhibition series. The works of over 40 textile designers, artists and craftspeople was presented to explore the place of digital technology in contemporary textile practice. Presented in four curated zones, at the Herbert Read Gallery on the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) Canterbury campus, the exhibition serves as a showcase of innovation and invites visitors to experience and consider the impact of the digital revolution on textile arts. Each exhibition zone focuses on a specific form of encounter between textiles and digital technologies. Digital X Material zone explores the fusion between digital and manual processes and the unique outcomes from unlikely combinations of material, form and technique. Digital X Personal explores the relationship between humanity and technology. The works in this zone focus on the body, the senses and aspects of perception. Digital X Social showcases works which comment upon or are inspired by existence in the digital age. Considerations of place, culture, identity and community are at the core of the works presented and emphasize textiles as powerful vehicles for communication. Digital X Historical comprises works which employ digital technology to preserve, contextualise or revive historic and traditional textile practices and artefacts. The exhibition aims to expand awareness of the inspirations, processes and technologies which have remained central to textile practice on either side of the digital revolution, and to consider the skills and knowledge necessary to be a textile artist-designer in the 21st century