Light content 1 - points of view

Thesis presentation by Christine Keller
MFA Studio Arts in Fibres

Vernissage Friday March 26 6 pm - 8 pm
Open March 27 noon - 6 only!
Concordia University
Hall Building, 1455 Blvd de Maissonneuve O

The show

In this first in a series of three projects new high tech materials are placed in the realm of artistic applications. The potential exists to expand these applications to performance, theatre, dance, fashion and architecture. light content 1 investigates on memories of images, ephemerality of concepts and materials, and the individuality of perception in space. Digital technologies on a high-tech-material base are used to create a sensual and experiential environment. This project is a merger of traditional textile techniques in a contemporary interpretation with the latest approach to material.

Retroglo high luminescent yarns are high reflective yarns used at present mainly in safety equipment. Produced in a newly developed jacquard technique, these pieces respond to light in unexpected and unknown ways. The viewer experiences a space where images appear and disappear on the structures through illuminations of various kinds. Due to the properties of Retroglo yarns two layers of visual appearance, alternately visible, are integrated in one fabric.

Bio

Born 1966 in Hamburg, Germany, presently living in Montreal, Canada.

The work of Christine Keller is positioned between textile design, education, hand weaving, technological research, innovation and visual art. She has been working with Louise Lémieux Bérubé (MCCT, Montreal), where she got especially interested in computer aided hand weaving. Her work got published in Techno Textiles in 1998. The award winning woven and felted design work for the socially engaged Handweberei im Rosenwinkel from 1998 to 2001 has been shown worldwide (Australia, Europe, Japan, USA, Saudi Arabia). Christine Keller has been teaching textile design, weaving and fibre arts in Germany, Mongolia and Canada.

Completing her MFA from Concordia University and holding a Diploma as Product Designer from University Kassel, Germany, she is presently working as research assistant to Prof. Joey Berzowska at the Hexagram Institute of New Media in the Arts. She is especially interested in the perspective the clash of tradition and newest technology gives us.