2022 / Finland
a(cuerda)me unifies the words acuerdame (remember me) and cuerda (string) as a possible answer to the question: Is there memory embedded into textiles?
Visual and tactile codes communicate stories, while steins, odors, and wrinkles are marks of their lives, showcasing their relation with the body and the environment. Thus, reflection on the past is enabled by these cues. But what if those memories could be dynamic, shape-shifting, and adaptive to emotions, touch, or the human voice? Could textiles transform into a new media for our digital archives, permitting recollection and access to these hidden memories? Could we reach a point where we trust our clothes memories more than our experiences?
By creating woven textiles with optical fibers and electronics, this interactive installation explores how we can code and decode memories into a soft material, transforming memories into a new light base language. The audience will be invited to get close to the textile pieces and experience how their proximity to the material can create tactile memories, with light indicating the presence of the bodies and showing hidden patterns.
Visual and tactile codes communicate stories, while steins, odors, and wrinkles are marks of their lives, showcasing their relation with the body and the environment. Thus, reflection on the past is enabled by these cues. But what if those memories could be dynamic, shape-shifting, and adaptive to emotions, touch, or the human voice? Could textiles transform into a new media for our digital archives, permitting recollection and access to these hidden memories? Could we reach a point where we trust our clothes memories more than our experiences?
By creating woven textiles with optical fibers and electronics, this interactive installation explores how we can code and decode memories into a soft material, transforming memories into a new light base language. The audience will be invited to get close to the textile pieces and experience how their proximity to the material can create tactile memories, with light indicating the presence of the bodies and showing hidden patterns.
Pictures by Vertti Virasjoki
