Weaving Yarns: An experimental prototype mixing fiber arts, technology, and storytelling.
By Sarah Jerger and Sophie Zeman-Hale
An 8 week prototype during the summer of 2018, in partnership with the Champlain College MakerLab and Heritage Winooski Mill Museum.
Intention
The intention behind this project was to develop some sort of collaborate work between myself and the Fiber Artist-in-Residence in the MakerLab during the summer of 2018 as part of my EMM 592 class, Collaborative Production. The intention was very open-ended and exploratory in nature, with the goal to produce some sort of tangible installation in a publicly-facing place. Sophie and I both carry an interest in fiber arts and its history as “women’s work”, as well as an interest in exploring possibilities of combining fiber arts with technology. Early on, it was suggested by instructor Rachel Hooper that we think about somehow engaging with a community partner as a way to propel these broad intentions.
Concept
The idea behind this concept accomplishes the following goals:
* Create an interactive piece of art in a museum exhibit setting
* Incorporate weaving, technology, and storytelling
* Amplify the skills of the team members, but also stretch them to learn unfamiliar tools and skills
* Demonstrate the rich stories of the Mill workers through a “living history” approach
* Focus on the human elements of a very industrial culture, connecting museum visitors to Mill
workers in a relatable and tangible way
* Offer a project in which the core team members (Sarah and Sophie) meaningfully collaborate
with the undergraduate MakerLab technicians and Faculty Advisor, and a community partner
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| Testing out what projection would look like on woven yarn, on the test loom. |
Due to an extremely short timeline the scope was altered accordingly (as one does!). While we would have loved to fully flush out the digital media in a more interactive way and with a more flushed out narrative, the deliverable presented met our goals for a phase 1 prototype.
The final deliverable for this project included a prototype of a fiber arts/technology/storytelling installation in the Heritage Winooski Mill Museum. The prototype consisted of a freestanding ~2.5’ x 5’ hand loom on a pipe base and a projector and Mac mini suspended from the 15’ ceiling. The projector shines onto pre-woven sections of the loom and projects 3 different videos in 3 different orientations (to encourage movement around the loom): 1) A video we created consisting of a slideshow of photos and auditory stories we recorded with voice actors, 2) An existing “From Wool to Cloth” video depicting the process, and 3) a video with title slides. These separate videos are loaded into a Processing program, written by Terry Sehr, that allows us to do simple projection mapping. In areas of the loom where there is not projection, the user is invited to try their own hand at weaving by using the cut pieces of ribbon, fabric, and bias tape (stored in the custom designed boxes that are secured to the pipe table base). A poster accompanied the project on an adjacent exhibit panel.
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| Testing out different projectors. We ended up needing 4000 lumens for such a bright space! |
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| Sophie and Sarah stringing the warp onto the final loom frame. |
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| Testing out new projector and multiple videos running in the Processing sketch. |
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| Install day! The very delicate (and high) process of mounting and properly aligning the projector. Install Day 1 took about 4 hours. |
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| Install day! Alec and Terry work on tweaking the projection map in Processing. |
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| If you didn't selfie, did it really happen? |
This project has been showcased during the following exhibit and/or testing opportunities inside the Heritage Winooski Mill Museum:
journalist visit to Mill Museum. User testing was conducted and feedback collected.
* July 2018 - French Heritage Festival - open to the public. User testing was conducted and
feedback collected.
* Potential to showcase during 2020 Year-long exhibition - “2020 Vision: Seeing the World
Through Technology”, a statewide showcase demonstrating how technology has changed life in
the past or present, or might in the future.
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| The full setup. |
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| 3 videos projected onto the loom. Participant weaving in the center. |
Reflections
Successes: Teamwork was a huge success for this project. We all worked really well together and involved each other for feedback without getting in each other’s way. The MakerLab team was so self-motivated; it was wonderful to know they could be fully trusted to deliver what they’d set out to do. Sophie was cornerstone as a subject matter expert in weaving. I played to my strengths in digital media and design. Not wanting to stay completely in our comfort zones, we each had a hand and input into other areas of the project as well.
A big win was successfully completing a high-end prototype. The installation looks great and more than meets its requirements as a prototype, in my opinion. I’ll be interested to see what we get for feedback to help fuel future iterations.
Challenges: Installation planning and execution posed the largest challenges of this project by far. Though acquiring and sifting through assets was also challenging, as was creating a cohesive “story” (I use that term loosely) with extremely limited time, the installation challenges outweighed those. The MakerLab team largely directed the planning and execution of the installation, however Sophie and I were involved in conceptualizing and feedback.
Time was our overarching challenge from the very beginning. In 9 short weeks we went from knowing Sophie and I wanted to work on something together to a fully installed prototype in the museum. My own travel schedule for work and long-before booked time off posed a challenge during these 9 weeks as well.
Suspending a projector from a 15’ high ceiling to face towards the floor, along with a Mac mini is no small feat. To do this the team installed 4 eye hooks in the ceiling and used 20 lb wire attached to a pipe fitting, which is connected to the projector and Mac mini which are strapped to the apparatus. Getting things working and lined up properly is another separate and equally difficult challenge. Meeting building fire codes without using an extension cord to get to an outlet over 25’ away was also a major challenge, which we solved with a special cord supplied by the museum which. Additional challenges arose in respect to security of the museum, which is often left unattended and/or unlocked. With this expensive technology within fairly easy reach, the museum director is making accommodations for the short term by locking the door when she is not present.
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| Weaving with my boys. |
Takeaways: My biggest takeaways from this experience include the fact that assembling the right team of diverse individuals who are motivated to achieve is clutch for a successful project. Each team member brought very different skills and backgrounds, which melded together beautifully to achieve what we did. We were also incredibly lucky to have a community partner who was very flexible and open to us doing pretty much whatever we wanted. Miriam was a delight to work with.
This project was also a good reminder for me to relinquish control of some aspects of the project. Only together can we collaborate to make something that is far greater than what I could have done on my own. I truly appreciate the team effort this project took.
Lastly, and perhaps most difficult for me, is making peace with the fact that this was a less-than-9-week prototype; it wasn’t meant to be all that it could be. I always want to put the final polish on things and really show something that I’m hugely proud of. While I am indeed very proud of all that was accomplished, I have a lot of ideas of how to make it better. I need to remind myself constantly that that’s the point as a prototype and be ok with sitting with that discomfort.
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| Done! (for a prototype) |
Looking to the Future: There is ripe opportunity for this project to be iterated upon in the future, by myself and/or other graduate students. Miriam Block, the director of the Mill Museum, is very interested in future partnerships, whether on this project or on other digital media projects.
Our ideas for the future of this project include:
* Creating larger areas for projection
* Including instructions to help users learn basic weaving techniques
* Refining the digital story being told across the different woven “canvases”:
- improving voice acting using older sounding voices and/or actual first-hand accounts
(documentary-style, perhaps using video from Winooski Historical Society)
- designing a way for the imagery to “dance” across the canvases so there is interplay between
the three improved correlation between imagery and audio
* Creating an auditory experience that can be experienced via headphones
* Incorporating text in a meaningful way
* Creating a bench for users, especially children, to try their hand at weaving
* Develop multiple story lines. Of particular interest include the stories of women and children.
* Additional stories could be about different ethnic groups, unionization, health and safety, etc.
* Create opportunities for user interactivity:
- Push button to start experience so it’s not continuously looping
- Sensors which would allow a user to start/stop the experience or direct the story (ie: starting to
weave a ribbon into the loom would trigger a story, or getting in close proximity to a certain
area would trigger a visual effect)
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| Students from the St. Albans Humanities Camp are the first testers. |
Team
* Sophie Zeman-Hale - Sophie Zeman-Hale is a fiber artist from Burlington. Her art practice involves sewing, weaving, and drawing. She is currently interning as Champlain College Emergent Media Center’s artist in residence. Sophie is a rising senior at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
* MakerLab Collaborators
- Katrina Mason - Katrina Mason is a rising sophomore Game Art and Animation major at Champlain College. She is from Farmington Connecticut, but has spent the summer in Burlington working at the Champlain College MakerLab. Katrina has interned at the Emergent Media Center at Champlain College and she has worked in the MakerLab during the school year. During this summer Katrina helped to design and build the loom for this installation.
- Alec Dupuis - Alec Dupuis, from Greene, Maine, is a third year student business student at Champlain College currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Management & Innovation. Alec works as an Advanced MakerLab Technician at the EMC and enjoys exploring ideas in engineering and design. As a part of this project, Alec helped to design and assembly the loom and projector mounting setup.
- MakerLab Faculty Advisor, Terrence Sehr - Terrence Sehr is an adjunct instructor in the Champlain College Masters in Emergent Media program, and manages the Emergent Media Center's MakerLab. Terrence is happiest when using technology to make interactive art.
* Community Partner:
- Heritage Winooski Mill Museum, Museum Director Miriam Block.
Mission: Heritage Winooski Mill Museum examines the industrial, cultural and social history of the 19th and 20th century mill era at Winooski Falls and Vermont, strives to preserve collections, and shares stories with exhibits, programs and publications that make historical events relevant to 21st century issues.
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