Tapestry* is a secular form of Art use as a support of expression for stories like, knightly epopee (Bayeux Tapestry), fantastic tales (The Lady and the Unicorn) or religious topic (Apocalypse Tapestry). At this period, this medium had a role to communicate with the population.
What could be a contemporary version of tapestry, focusing not only to the making process but also to the role that this object had at this time?
This research project tries to imagine through multiple experimentations an augmented and interactive tapestry mixing traditional techniques and high-tech process. As a communication support, the basis use to create the visual is personal data* gather through the internet and connected devices, bringing public life element to public.
*Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike cloth weaving where both the warp and the weft threads may be visible. In tapestry weaving, weft yarns are typically discontinuous; the artisan interlaces each coloured weft back and forth in its own small pattern area. It is a plain weft-faced weave having weft threads of different colours worked over portions of the warp to form the design.
Source (Wikipedia).
*Data visualization or data visualisation is viewed by many disciplines as a modern equivalent of visual communication. It involves the creation and study of the visual representation of data, meaning “information that has been abstracted in some schematic form, including attributes or variables for the units of information”.
A primary goal of data visualization is to communicate information clearly and efficiently via statistical graphics, plots and information graphics.
Source (Wikipedia).
Project initiated by Audrey Briot & Martin De Bie
Quantified Epopee was exhibited at the exhibition of the eTextile summer camp 2016. Present as remains of an archeological search in the future, the different knitting pieces embedded deteriorated sound related to the pattern created. The story propose to see this elements as artefacts of an old digital crafting process revisiting the tapestry expertise in 2016.