the velvet project
As of June 2023, I am exploring how velvet hand-weaving’s slow, tactile intimacy can be communicated through digital technologies. Over the course of three years I will be diving deep into the depths of velvet, aiming to externalise a deeply internalised process and create a knowable experience of velvet weaving.
Here is where I keep diary-based updates, covering the progress, hiccups and inspiration of the project.
This three-year artistic research possible is part of the DiGiTal programme, funded by the BCP and housed at the Wearable Computing department at the Universität der Künste in Berlin.
What’s in a velvet?
Reading the data in a square of velvet.
Winding bobbins
Loading the first 150 bobbins with doses of silk.
Refining rods
Collaborating with goldsmiths to craft velvet rods
Historic velvet
Gathering clues from 15th century velvet.
Rough rods
First forays into recreating velvet weaving rods
Preliminary pompom
Testing the velvet-suitability of a mystery silk
Grain store
Stockpiling carving experience for future use
Hour(less)glass
Finding ways to track time without using time
Making waves
Sharpening tools to make velvet patterns
Bobbin prototyping
The first experiments in making a velvet bobbin
Datenschutzerklärung — Impressum
©Emma Wood 2024