The Life of a Party & Unraveling || Lee Jones & Greta Grip

Media Art + Technology Exhibition 2023

Details

Date: June 23 – Sept 15, 2023

Opening: June 23, 7 - 10PM

Gallery hours: Thurs- Sat (1-5pm)

Location: Poolside Gallery

It is our pleasure to present new work by Lee Jones and Greta Grip, part of the Media Art + Technology Residency that is wrapping up soon and will be showing from June 23 – September 15, 2023. The artists have been meeting with the VP team to narrow in on specific details of this new interactive work

The artists have been meeting with the VP team to narrow in on specific details of this new interactive work... an evolving/devolving, interactive, data-collecting, technology and craft related artwork that will respond not only to VP's gallery, but will involve ways of including other areas of the building while drawing together ideas and inspiration from both historical and current activities.

The theme for MATR this year is (de)PRESS(i)ON, and is a part of a year-long program celebrating and exploring VP’s 40th anniversary, what we are referring to as our Mid-life Crisis™. This program represents STAGE 4: Depression, or, as we like to think, PRESS ON.

MATR Exhibition Details

The Life of a Party (2023)

The Life of a Party is a knitting machine that responds to the physical activities around VP, creating one long knitted party streamer to celebrate the organization's 40th. As individuals walk by the sensor, it will knit a row on the streamer, tangibilizing the movement of individuals through the space. With the colour of the yarn changing each month, we will be able to see the ebbs and flows of movement through the building throughout the year. In contrast to most recording methods, our record of this year will be an imperfect, tangible, soft, colourful, knitted party streamer.

Unraveling: (de)Press(i)On (2023)

In this series we play with knitting as a fabrication method, a fabrication method that enables threads to be unraveled when pulled on. This is due to how knitting is constructed out of a single yarn that is looped and can be unraveled back into a spool. In this series of works panels of yarn are unraveled when individuals walk by or pull on the threads.

For this project we have developed textile artwork that responds and unravels with human presence (i.e. people walking by or standing in front of the textile panels). Individuals walking by the installation caused the reflections to unravel until they completely disappeared.

We developed knitted panels, showing different “scenes”, that will unravel to show the next knitted scene underneath in response to manually pulling or movement sensor data. These scenes were created from discussions with VP on the organization’s past, present, and where they want to go in the future.

In this interactive performance the viewer is the audience as well as the performer, and will be able to determine how quickly the work and the reflections unravels. As the sensor is triggered they will begin unravelling the top layer using motors. We want to create a moment of tension as people start to realize that their presence is unravelling the work. For works with manual manipulation, the viewer will be able to actively take the works apart.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Greta Grip
Greta Grip enjoys pulling the strings of what is traditional knitting and winding it around the digital age. Greta started to exhibit her knitted food in 2009, since then her practice has evolved from knitting QR codes to EL wire. Currently, Grip knits with her hacked knitting machine. Hacked it by removing its original brain and replacing it with an USB port. Focused on a practice of exploring the use of layering texts and symbols, colours and textures; foregoing the unfinished and flawed, Grip’s work challenges the understanding of what knitting is supposed to look like. Her signature labels: A treasure to remember by Greta Grip is the finale as she once again pokes fun at the seriousness of what is art.

More on her page: GretaGrip.com

Lee Jones
Lee Jones is a postdoctoral fellow with the iStudio Lab at Queen’s University. Before joining the lab, she did her PhD at the Creative Interactions Lab at Carleton University, where her thesis focused on e- textiles, hybrid craft, and textile personal fabrication. In her research she develops DIY toolkits so individuals can design and create interactive soft technologies to suit their own needs. She also loves running community e-textile workshops at art galleries and makerspaces, and creating interactive participatory artworks.