For the Digital/Material: Developments in Printed Textiles Conference 2017 we present the “In the Making” Project “Lightdial” to reflect upon how the collaborative process has influenced our practice and how digital media and the use of pattern specifically has enabled work to develop for the project and beyond.
The history of our collaboration began with the Gunfighter Project, collaborative discussions evolved around sound, music, projection, film, dance/performance, sculpture and printed image; through this, the potential for pattern could be explored along with the use of digital media.

“From a practical point of view using digital media and printing enabled us to derive narrative images from a number of sources and work with them to create 3d anaglyphs that could be printed onto fabric. This gave us the possibility to make wearable sculptures and forms that opened up performance possibilities. This then gave us the chance to create more imagery by collaborating with Genetic Moo, Collectress, Circo Rumbaba and musicians.” Evelyn Bennett

“The use of digital media has enabled an analogue practitioner such as myself to explore quick ways of notating sound and music to explore the musical motif as a repeat to create pattern. These weave themselves into layered soundscapes that are reminiscent of ambient surroundings, where you might see pattern, for example in nature or interiors” Rebecca Waterworth

“In the Making; Lightdial” was part funded by UCA to develop costumes designed and made by Rutter and Bennett. The collaboration explored pattern, motif and the notion of repeat, through dance, music, performance, sound, and printed pattern.
Working digitally enabled the transposition of ideas from one media to another, text to sound, sound to image, image to sculpture, image to performance. The instant nature of digital media enabled pattern to be derived within these medias, whether through filming movement to repeat and rehearse or using sounds made through movement to loop as a motif, these methods allowed for a surprisingly organic growth which influenced the development of the textile design and costumes.

In presenting our collaboration through a presentation, film and live performance we feel we demonstrate how digital technologies impacts on the potential of digital textiles and the potential of new materials such as conductive tape and thread in” allowing” for the inclusion of other medias to be incorporated in to the nature of what “surface” is. In the “Bauhaus like” collaboration there became an inclusivity not exclusivity into how each practitioner operated a designer became sound maker or a musician became dancer and that was through not only the digital media but the notion of pattern. And this throws up some truly interesting notions of what pattern can incorporate and therefore the potential of textile design to incorporate a broader context when considering its future potential.