My work utilizes common and domestic materials (like thread, fabric, newspapers, rugs, paper, or acrylic glass) to emphasize language as a fundamental human tool, whether spoken, written, thought, gestured, or typed; communication is an essential part of both intimate and public life. It can connect and divide, wound and heal, build up or tear down, hide and reveal. It shapes us, and we wield it to shape our world.
I isolate and recontextualize news articles, tweets, and colloquial concepts or phrases to highlight the social categorization that undergirds everyday speech and information exchanges, drawing attention to things often said, but rarely considered. I frequently use patterns of code as a translation tool, drawing attention to language forms, patterns, and systems, and how these change over time and are carried forward into new technologies. I work with textiles as a primitive (as in early) form of text and coding, and a material substance with and of which all humans are intimately familiar and have inherent knowledge.
www.stitchingthesituation.com (collaborative project in response to COVID/using US COVID data as a base/framework)
Insta: @heatherdschulte @stitchingthesituation
I am interested in how simple elements or rules can build on themselves and interact in novel and highly complex ways. My artwork explores textiles (materials and/or techniques), text and technology, translating between analog and digital means. This often involves a lot of pre-planning, then execution, which can get a little…boring at times. Or feels too controlled.
I’m going to play with CA to bring more chance/generative ways of working that create something that I cannot predict into my work. I also have interest in working with groups of people to generate rules together, and have fun seeing where they lead. I like to work with folks who are a bit…shy… or intimidated by Art or Creativity, and I think creating some simple, generative rules could create an environment that is less daunting, yet still very creative in its output and collaborative in practice.
I would have liked some more time with the 2d automata. The transition from elementary to 2d was a LOT for my brain, as all the rules one creates apply all at once across the whole surface, which is a lot of information to process. I do have a lot to explore now, though!
I would also have liked to have the walkthrough of color code/ splaty code sooner, though I totally understand the potential purpose of NOT doing so forced us to figure it out (essentially testing whether a non-text based interface works!). For me, simply a head’s up that the arrow keys indicated different scripts (like how a game console functions) would have been helpful. It didn’t occur to me, just based on the way the elementary generator worked. Same with the rotational aspect of Splatycode.
I would like to do more analog iterations of 2d automata. I tend to work more with analog materials, and understand processes better through this slow methodology, and was a bit frustrated that I couldn’t make color/splatycode go frame-by-frame or step-by-step as it executed rules. I’m not a proficient coder at all, so that makes it challenging for me to look behind the scenes of graphic interfaces, or to adjust code to create the operations I want.
Best has been seeing the variety of ways folks have been applying our learning, and riffing off one another’s ideas–it’s been very supportive regardless of anyone’s technical experience with coding.
Worst was catching COVID the last week and missing class! booooo.
I felt lost for a while trying to wrap my head around 2d automata–the complexity makes results super interesting and novel, yet trying to do so in an analog manner most certainly did NOT end up creating the same results when tested in color or splatycode. Again, understanding how the rules interact when applied all at once is a lot for a human brain to process, so it make sense to apply them with a computer with more processing power. side note–how much RAM does a human have? hahaha*
I felt creative when I found ways to apply the concepts to materials I am comfortable with. The first homework, to knitting (and particular in the round–so there were no “edges”), the 2D to some of the blur effects that I managed to work out through drawing. I would love to learn how to implement them through coding so I can prototype ideas I have more quickly, and have my own algorithms to process images myself.
Yes! I have a new appreciation of the application of computers to process a lot of information/rules at one time, over and over–the speed with which we can test ideas is quite incredible, especially for me as my work is very sloowwwww. I’ve been inspired by the folks in our class.
I LOVED Nay’s text processor. Funnily enough, I have a brain injury, so the fact that she mentioned this specifically as part of her inspiration alongside my blur effect rendering was serendipitous. A lot of my work looks at language through questions of what is legible/illegible and why, and I recently connected that to the way my brain injury affects my language processing skills.
Similarly with Sophie’s language rule set–I play with rules like this a lot, and want to explore it further.
Yixin’s soft robotics is fascinating, too. Our local uni (CU Boulder) has a lab (ATLAS) that explores soft/interactive textiles.
All the work with textiles was fun to see, too, as it’s my wheelhouse and was used in many different ways.
Remi, keep going! The patterns you’re creating are gorgeous.
And Liam, I had no idea there was a library for Riso effects. I have a friend who has a Riso print studio in PDX, and I love that style.
I also really enjoyed Eric’s drawings and watercolor. I play with watercolor and ink, too, particularly because it is difficult to control and really want to get a plotter.
And I want to see Wiley’s thesis project when it’s finished!