Girls' Chat Sampler

Full description

Background
This project is informed by practice led research into digital and physical processes for wearable surfaces: as textiles or as augmented reality face filters. The project explores notions of interiority and display within domestic space. It is inspired by the practice of embroidery sampling in the early industrial age. Young women would hone their embroidery skill by making small samplers with their names, various motifs and pertinent quotes. These were objects that developed skill with the craft, but that were also personal artefacts tied to distinct individual identities. This project appropriates the practice of sampling to test processes with machine embroidery and augmented reality, to make embroidered objects that activate wearable identities in the form of face filters.

Contribution
‘Girls’ Chat Samplers’ comprises a series of 5 digitally embroidered ‘chat samplers’, featuring emoji, icons and symbols from contemporary networked culture alongside quotes from celebrities like Kim Kardashian. The samplers activate instagram and facebook filters, offering ‘wearable identities’ - for the audiences. The project researched processes to digitise and embroider network artefacts into tactile objects, and techniques for producing animated augmented reality filters for social media. By combining these physical and digital processes, the project has tried to create threshold objects that interface between the physical world and the digital world of social media feeds.

Significance
The work was curated into ‘Here Comes The Fun’ by curator Virginia Dowzer as part of the 2019 Melbourne Fashion Festival, alongside a number of Victorian designers. The works were housed in a structure designed by Moth Design and positioned outside of Southern Cross Station for 2 weeks in August/September.