Keynote Abstracts

Maria Blaisse - Tubedesign

Maria Blaisse's interests lie in the intersections between art and fashion, incorporating video, performance and photography, in an exploration of sculptural performance, with the body as a critical element in the animation of materials and form.

Maria Blaisse has collaborated with fashion designer Issey Miyake and has had the significance of her work compared to that of architects such as Alvor Aalto, Jørgen Utzon and Frank Lloyd Wright. (Ole Palsby, 2004). Over the past 30 yrs, using contemporary materials and processes, such as neoprene rubber, foam polyamides, vacuum moulding and lamination, Blaisse has explored the relationship between materials, forms and the body. She creates non-woven forms for the body that are poetic and deceptively simple. They are forms which not only change the appearance of the wearer, but also adapt to the movements of the human body, while retaining a sculptural life of their own.

Her keynote presentation will be an examination of work developed since 1985, which focuses on the use of the rubber inner tube of a car and its potential to host an infinite richness of forms and movement. The tube has become a primary cell from which forms emerge and appear like a stilled dance of the dynamic flexible potential of the tube.

The Tissue Culture & Art Project (Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr) - Victimless Leather

Humans, the naked apes, have been covering their fragile bodies/skins to protect themselves from the external environment. This humble act for survival has developed into a complex social ritual which transformed the concept of a “Garment” into an evocative object that cannot be taken on its face value. Garment became an expressive tool to project one's identity, social class, political stand and so on. Garments are humans' fabrication and can be explored as a tangible example of humans' treatment of the Other.

By growing Victimless Leather, the Tissue Culture & Art (TC&A) Project is further problematising the concept of garment by making it Semi-Living, victimless and non-speciest. The Victimless Leather is grown out of immortalised cell lines which are cultured and form a living layer of tissue supported by a biodegradable polymer matrix in a form of miniature stich-less coat like shape. We are growing living tissue into leather like material.

This artistic grown garment will confront people with the moral implications of wearing parts of dead animals for protective and aesthetic reasons and will further confront notions of relationships with living and partially-living systems manipulated or otherwise.

An actualized possibility of wearing ‘leather' without killing an animal is offered as a starting point for cultural discussion. Our intention is not to provide yet another consumer product but rather to raise questions about our exploitation of other living beings. We see our role as artists as one in which we are providing tangible example of possible futures, and research the potential affects of these new forms on our cultural perceptions of life.

As part of the TC&A project we are artistically exploring and provoking notions relating to human conduct with other living and partially-living systems - or to the Other. This particular project deconstructs our cultural meaning of clothes as a second skin by materialsing it and displaying it as an art object.

In the paper we will explore the “journey” of the naked ape from loosing its fur and wearing dead animals to the possibility of semi-living garments created from an animal that was scarified fifty or more years ago and its cells are currently being grown by us. Peter Singer's anti-speciest arguments as well as Emmanuel Levinas notions of treatment of the Other will be juxtaposed in the attempt to open up a niche for more egalitarian view of humans (and technological humans) in the continuum from life to the non-living.

The Tissue Culture & Art Project (TC&A) is hosted in SymbioticA - The Art and Science Collaborative Research Laboratory, School of Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Australia.

The State of Western Australia has made an investment in this project through ArtsWA in Association with the Lotteries Commission.

Cells and advice supplied by Verigen Australia; special thanks to Professor Ming. H. Zheng, and Paul Anderson.

Technical advice by Professor Dharmarajan Arunasalam, Glass work by Greg Cole. Special thanks to Adam Fiannaca.

** A cell line is a permanently established cell culture that will proliferate indefinitely given appropriate fresh medium and space. Lines differ from cell strains in that they have escaped the Hayflick limit and become immortalised. Some species, particularly rodents, give rise to lines relatively easily, whereas other species do not. No cell lines have been produced from avian tissues and the establishment of cell lines from human tissue is difficult. Many cell biologists would consider that a cell line is by definition already abnormal and that it is on the way towards becoming the culture equivalent of a neoplastic cell. (http://www.books.md/E/dic/establishedcellline.php)

Reiko Sudo – NUNO: Sense and Skill

In the twenty years since NUNO Tokyo's founding in 1984, we have planned, produced and sold some 2000 textiles, all but a handful of which have been made in Japan. Throughout these islands there exist numerous weaving and dyeing centres where artisans still preserve traditional skills and techniques. To no small degree, we owe our creative existence to their support, their intuition, sensibilities, and above all to their flexibility and willingness to try new and different things.

In this talk, I hope to present a few of the more outstanding examples of textiles we have created together with such artisans, with particular emphasis on our most recent works, such as our collaborative efforts in fibre recycling we've undertaken with the silk research station in Amami Oshima, on the subtropical southern islands between Okinawa and the main part of Japan. Or our textiles made from the la test "natural synthetic" fibres recycled from corn (maize) and other food plants. Or again, textiles woven from fibres spuns from such unlikely source materials as charcoal and bamboo.

Most of these new "wonder fibres" are products of very advanced technologies, whose R&D budgets we could never finance on our own, but which grab our immediate attention nonetheless. As designers, however, we cannot stop at the mere rarity of these new materials, but must boldly push on to consider new design expressions to give them optimum form and life.

Today's technologies are producing new materials one after the next. Many other materials are ceasing production just as quickly due to environmental concerns. All of which gives us pause to think each time we approach a new substance with an eye to design. Yet ultimately, the real questions are always those of creative expression: what to elicit in the most vibrant way from the materials at hand. This, I hope to show here, is what our design work is all about.

Marie O'Mahony - Plenary

As Conference plenary Marie O'Mahony will present her summation and response to the presentations and discussion that featured in the conference as well as giving her suggestions for future possibilities resulting from the conference in general.

Introduction to Papers and Presentations

by the Chair of the Referee Panel - Dr Suzettte Worden, Professor of Design, Faculty of BEAD Curtin University :

There is no doubt that all the artists, designers and researchers who responded to the call for contributions to the conference have challenged existing definitions of the the space between and are on target to consolidate these ideas into considered responses for the conference presentations and for publication on the conference CD-ROM.

The conference therefore promises to be an event that will continue existing dialogues surrounding fashion, textiles, art, technology and related social concerns. Contributors have also taken up the challenge to expand the possible formats possible within a conference setting. As a result there will be a range of static and time-based visual presentations that examine the tactile, visual and spatial aspects of practice. The range of formal paper presentations will represent an international perspective across the range of themes suggested for the conference. The provisional program provides an initial snapshot of the possibilities for engagement. It will be possible to follow themes such as wearable technologies or the relationship between art and craft throughout most of the conference sessions and then relate these sessions to the exhibits in the various venues in Central Perth or at the John Curtin Gallery.

There will hopefully be many surprises and challenging statements emerging from the conference discussions. The space for contemplation will be enlarged by the thought-provoking contributions. Already it is clear that the spectrum of debate will cover the fashion industry and how young designers have found their niche in this environment and expanded the definition of what is aesthetically and innovatively possible for the expanding creative industries. Contributions on changes in art and design education will show how these trends have been recognised by educators. Other speakers promise to look at the democratisation of the retail sectors of the fashion industry and are set to offer their analysis of innovation, globalisation and international trends. The way these themes can be informed by ethical values has also been suggested as an important debate for the conference.

There will be case studies of international cooperation, where practitioners will give accounts of their collaborations and the social, economic and aesthetic gains to be achieved from such work. In some presentations these accounts will include a discussion of how, in some instances, traditional practices in textiles have been re-vitalised or, in other contexts, have been the catalyst for innovative contemporary work.

Practicing artists and designers will explore the theoretical or historical context of their work in many of the presentations. The themes to be covered are many and varied. Examples include the fascination of the garment as something to be explored; an empty shell for the ima gina tion to conjure up a wearer or a construction that offers endless experimentation in form. The body will also be the subject of other presentations where speakers propose to link our understanding of fashion and textiles with cultural theory and historical analysis. Other presenters are keen to show how productive it is to move between the arts and the crafts in their practice. They often challenge accepted views of the decorative, the traditional hierarchies of sources of inspiration, and acceptable materials or their combination. The legacies of modernism and postmodernism are reworked in theory and practice.

The conference will provide stimulating coverage of the ways in which new technologies are offering challenges for anyone creating garments or textiles. Documentation of the creation of materials that are woven or printed digitally will be presented. Other papers will consider the ethical and political aspects associated with the development and production wearable computers. We can also expect a consideration of the broader debates on cyberculture to enter the fashion and textiles field in ima gina tive and unforeseen ways.

This international conference therefore promises to be a stimulating and exciting celebration of theory and practice.

Abstracts for Papers and Visual Presentations follows

Selection of conference presentations has been finalised by an independent referee panel.

A provisional list of Abstracts for Papers and Visual Presentations follows.

To view the files -
click on the links below. Use the back function of your browser to return to this page.

To save the file -
PC, Internet Explorer Users - Right click your mouse buttons, choose "Save target as" and save the file to your local Hard Disk.

Mac, Internet Explorer Users - Hold down the Control Key and choose "Download link to Disk" and save the file to your Hard Disk.

TRELOAR Graham, TRELOAR Andrew, THOMAS Sue, CRAWFORD Robert & BURRY Mark (Aus)
Assessing environmental impacts of manufacturing: technologies for informing design - paper