Critical & Historical Studies, Royal College of Art
MA Dissertation (Distinction)
2022
Abstract:
Past scholarship evidences how ‘text’ and ‘textile’ inform each other through concept (theory) and material (practice), establishing their (inter)relationship. Further analysis of such scholarship, however reveals the predominance of textiles in informing text within this established text-textile (inter)relationship matrix, as understood through text’s etymological root within textile vocabulary, textile making influences on various paper making practices, as well as the Jacquard loom’s eventual inspiration behind the production of the electronic text. This understanding highlights a lack of substantial scholarship enquiring modalities in which text inform textile. Such a study of text-textile (inter)relationship thus is an attempt to enquire unequal relations of power present within economies of cultural production. Adopting ‘e-text’ as the methodology, this dissertation analyses the process and practice of writing an electronic text, allowing ways of understanding textiles as theory and practice. This is explored through three modes: e-line, e-space and e-size, which are identified as primary attributes of the e-text that directly facilitate the process of writing and reading. In the face of a globalised and standardised production economy, this dissertation fundamentally enquires the role and implication of technological intervention in cultural dissemination and hybridisation, whereby anyone with access to the electronic has the power to ‘amend’ culture, for better or for worse.
Keywords: text; textile; methodology; theory; practice
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