BOUQUET OF DIGITALIS
Stine Rathje
Scandinavian Academy of Fashion Design
My bachelor collection 'Bouquet Of Digitalis', is an exploration in how we, as humans, are inevitably affected by the increasing digitalisation of our lives. How are we changing physically and psychologically? Simultaneously, I examine the optimization of textile production, exemplified by the knitting machine and digital weaving. Working with the constant interplay between human and machine, handmade and automatically produced, natural textiles and artificial materials, as well as plant-based and chemical dyes. I am sure that the more we know about textile production, the more we will respect the clothes we surround ourselves with. I digitally weave motifs that I have created by unravelling and reassembling photographs. I create glitch-like effects on the knitting machine. Embroider silk with routes I have generated using a tracking app. I make pixelated images using laser-cut sequins onto which I have printed images. And I create silhouettes by observing people’s postures while they are using their phones. I work within a two-dimensional world of flat silhouettes and textiles, exploring the relationship to the increasingly screen-based way we experience the world. For all 5 looks, the colouring and fabric manipulation has only been applied for the front of all the pieces, leaving the back completely white. This underline the way we are perceiving front-end and back-end in a computer or knit and purl in a textile, mostly being interested in the front.