Weekend Review: Record, Map & Capture

 

Record, Map & Capture / Jordan Cunliffe
London: Batsford, c2022
128 p.

I recently checked out this title from my library since the concept really interested me, and I've also seen some of Jordan Cunliffe's work on Instagram. It's full of cerebral content - really conceptual work here. When she talks about textile art, she is talking about hand stitch almost exclusively, and how to 'write' onto fabric with thread. 

It starts with a solid intro by the author going over the ideas in the book and giving some background.  Then the book is broken up into 3 main chapters, with a set of extra resources at the end to use for further idea development (some graph papers, and charts of morse code and binary code). 

She starts with Data Visualization, showing examples of visual data as in the Bayeux Tapestry, and a more conceptual record of sleep patterns. She then moves into four artist profiles and provides two project ideas for this area. I found this use of data to create a textile work fascinating, but not very aesthetically appealing - it's very raw data, with a stitch representing one specific day/sleep/piece of data. Quite graphically strong though. 

The next section is about Steganography, basically hiding data in plain sight. This was my favourite section, as I could see it being used in so many ways. It reminded me a little of some of the ideas in Thomas Knauer's Quilt Out Loud which I reviewed last year. Here Cunliffe profiles 3 artists, and shows an example of a quilt made by an English WWII POW in Germany - he used Morse Code in a border of his quilt to spell out rude statements about Hitler, which I loved. In this section there is a focus on codes, including both Morse code and binary code. She shows some examples of her own work in which coloured beads are used to stand in for letters of the alphabet; she stitches up important documents, following their formatting but substituting her own colours for letters - so we can't read them but we can tell they say something. This appeals to me as I also love asemic writing in textiles. There is one project idea shared in this section. 

The final section focuses on Algorithms. She discusses Ada Lovelace, shares maps, 4 artist profiles, and two project ideas in this part. Here again the projects shown are graphics focused; whether just straight stitches, with each representing one bit of data, or a little more complex, the concept drives the piece. 

There is a lot of info here, lots to inspire and get you started making visual representations of data that matters to you. There are resources and links to follow and many artists to explore further. I liked this but I did find that the style of artworks shown here didn't really connect with me. I like a little more colour and vim and shape, while these pieces are centred on both line and white space. It's not my own aesthetic, but I can see taking some of the ideas and using them in work in my own style. Well worth reading in any case!