The Transboundary of Fiber —— A Technological Inquiry on Contemporary Art Game
The button is dark while the work changes color.
The button flashes while the work is dormant and dimmed.
The button lights up steadily again, press it to see another pattern.
If there is no explanation, the reader feels surprised and even confused to construct a kind of imagination of the fiber fabric according to such description. This description from the American artist Maggie Orth [1964-], who depicts a series of artificial electronic fabrics controlled by color temperature in such a way, both reveals special details about this fiber art triennial and also provides an appropriate entry point for this article to follow the curiosity of the audience into the core of the topic: the transboundary of fiber.
We may run into problems in the first place. How does the transboundary of fiber inquiry on technology? How does the game develop? This article opens up its context by “questioning” road constructed by Matin Heidegger in Questioning Technology. “Since the essence of technology is not any technical factor, the fundamental contemplation and conclusive analysis of technology must take place in a field that is related to the essence of technology but fundamentally different from it. Such a field is art.” 1However, when transboundary of fiber takes place in contemporary art, this artistic state shows the characteristics of the game described by the Dutch scholar Johan Huizinga. “……The game is not ‘ordinary’ or ‘real’ life, it steps out of ‘real’ life and gets into a temporary sphere of activity with its own tendencies…… ” So what we are about to experience is how does the game led by the transboundary of fiber separate us from the conventional material pressure.

Critics say that since the 21st century, human society has developed a vision of a technology-oriented future with the advent of global modern lifestyle and the vision of the space age. And there also seems to appear a vision in the art field, where a method is developed to analyze and discuss what the technological world is doing and will do to materials and ideas. A noteworthy phenomenon: from the late 20th century to the early 21st century, human society began to focus on a special transformation closely related to fiber: collecting solar energy, transmitting light and heat, interactive digital technology, testing pulse and pollutants, changing color of fiber construction and battle suits sensitive to environment, and even contracting muscle fiber... All of these signs of what is going on with fiber are telling us that we are experiencing or are about to experience an unprecedented period of technological innovation. The sage reminds us that information from the visible world must be coded by the artist. 2Since the 1990s, the field of contemporary art has developed a dynamic trend that implies technology inquiry: transboundary phenomenon keeps emerging. Artistic expressions run across boundaries, contemporary artist identity goes beyond boundaries, fiber itself began to perform the function of a multi-link media...And fiber, with the development of material science3- an unprecedented knowledge system in the new research field is involving in technology questioning in the context of contemporary art game - which reevaluates the development prospect of the material nature, texture, function and structure of fiber, attempting to enter a new field, creating consciousness and feeling, enriching and activating audience's experience.
Based on my attention to digital technology, I have studied the art creation by Lia Cook [1942-], the senior weaver who was active in the field of international fiber art in the beginning of 1970’s, and once integrated painting, photography, image, video and digital technology into the traditional pattern of fabrics in the form of weaving. It goes beyond the so-called decorative and symbolic boundaries of fabric pattern in the traditional sense. Who would have thought that a piece of fabric nearly 50 meters long would begin to serve as a storage device? The creator

Dylan Fish [1991], a rising artist from Canada, explains: “you could see how your message is encoded and encrypted into cloth when writing a message randomly in the dialog box and clicking the encryption button.” Strictly speaking, the Encrypted Archive 03.FFF [2017] is a fabric file containing 19 different file informations such as text, audio and image. The structure of the file is created by Python4 computing language, whose binary information mode generates the black and white threads which corresponding to the code “zero” and “one” respectively. The flashing of a neon tube is controlled by a Morse Code5 transmission, and viewers can access the program by setting up a computer on the spot. Obviously, what the artist thinks is more than technology shaping material, form and space. In an era as information is available everywhere and under the Orwellian6 digital surveillance, it can be said that the work not only raises questions about privacy but also reconstructs an idea of how to store and hide data in seemingly plain sight for viewers.
With the popularity of computer program to each domain in the society, the involvement of computer technology provides a new world for the development of fiber material. However, when data control means such as programming technology and image processing attract the attention of artists, the technology produces another spirit revival and inspiration for fiber, and presents a unique artistic language and expression form in the context of contemporary art. It can be said that in some extent, the fiber is gathering the advantages of modern technology, and going beyond technology -- fiber itself is an interactive system with correlation, even including the human perception.
At the exhibition, a series of sonic weavings by Mr. Soledad Fátima Mu?oz [1986-], is wall-hangings woven of high conductive fiber material as a physic converter, which produces sound through amplifying the electromagnetic wave captured in space. “My family is made up of immigrants -first from Syria to Chile and then as a Chilean refugee going to Canada. So I was born in exile. I had no sense of belonging since I was born, and I wanted to become a voice for immigrants. And I found solace in the invisible space.” From an artist’s point of view, recreating a sense of exile is her hidden voice. The change of steam of people on-site where a constantly changing and invisible interconnected space is created generates the change of sonic waves. It seems that fiber makes up the wall-hangings, but its greater implication lies in making the audience an experience of sonic waves, just like being in an invisible social space, experiencing changes and even transitions through the change of pace and the passing of figures. Herbert Reed, a renowned British art critic, once said: ‘In every age, mankind has created practical things... At every stage of a human civilization, however, there has always been a feeling that what we call scientific attitude is flawed. Human brain is capable of coping with objective facts. But aside from these objective facts, there exists a world which can only be perceived by instinct and intuition. The purpose of art has always been developing these nebulous ways of understanding.”7

When fiber begins to perform the function of electronic device, correspondingly, the textile-like surface starts to become the carrier to present the artist’s thoughts, just as it has performed the function of expression before the text is born in human history.8 The technical principle of artificial electronic fabrics controlled by color temperature mentioned at the beginning of the article is that the electronic device controls the current to make resistive yarns heat, which in turn makes the thermochromic ink change color. When this series of changes from physics to chemistry are skillfully applied to the fabric, the audience cannot help but marvel at the transboundary ability of fiber technolgy. Maggie Orth, the science and technology artists, who owns a PhD Degree in Media Lab and a Master's Degree of Science in Center for Advanced Visual Studies in MIT, centers on the impact of technology on human and a critical reflection on science and technology in her creation and study, including her novel and paper. It should be said that artificiality, life and time are arias that Maggie infuses into her artificial electronic fabrics. The three electronic fabrics on display, namely, 100 Electronic Art Years [2009], Barcode Man [2008] and Flat Line [2010], were all set with “life” limit and operated in the way of consuming time. When audience exclaim about the mysterious color change, the works wait for the final results. The artist says that this is the “death” of the work. Among the Many [2013], is an eye-catching work at the exhibition. While it is assumed that the movement changes with gorgeous patterns from a distance, the truth at close range is the plainest picture of weaving. As a true weaver, John Paul Morabito defined the weaving art as a pathway to the wider world. His pursuit of weaving is based on an interdependent relationship with image, construction and digital technology. From the artist's perspective, this recorded weaving video is the creation of a digital fabric which recording a frame as weaving a line and stacking the hypnotic, ever-changing surface in order to make the established time and space through the past, present, and future to crash. Thus, the viewer is able to imagine and enter a new time and space.
“Every technology gradually creates a whole new human environment which is not a negative package but a positive mechanism.” 9As Marshall McLuhan [1911-1980], foresees in his book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, “Various technologies and their subsequent environments occur one after another in very quick speed, so the old environment makes one aware of the new that follows. Technology makes us aware of its psychological and social consequences.” “At this point, technology begins to play an artistic role.”10This is important when new technologies offer many ways to define, to produce and to display visual art, the meaningful game between art and technology begins. Art becomes more mysterious when technology questioning takes place. Moreover, we find that more and more people who have background knowledge outside the original art system are joining in the game and bringing in non-art experience. Even more, they are trying to lead the game into a larger scope of visual culture, so that art can be mixed with other visual cultures and act more comprehensively on people’s perception. When the language of contemporary art presents a series of comprehensive cooperative relations of multiple knowledge areas, transboundary will push the future of art. However, under technology questioning in the game, the transboundary of fiber actually manifests an epitome of transgression in contemporary art.

1.[German] Martin Heidegger, Heidegger Anthology: Speeches and Essays, translated by Sun Zhouxing, Commercial Press, 2018, Page 40.
2.[English] E.H. Gongbraich, Art and Illusion: A Psychological Study of Picture Reproduction, translated by Lin Xi, Li Benzheng, Fan Jingzhong, Hunan Science and Technology Press, 2007.3, Page 133.
3.The emergence of the research field means that the knowledge of various disciplines, which were previously independent and scattered, including power and electronics, chemistry, biology, computer science, engineering technology and so on, will be integrated.
4.A high-level computer programming.
5.Morse code is a kind of stop-and-go signal code that expresses different letters, numbers, and punctuation marks through different order. Its code consists of five types, as opposed to the modern binary code that uses only zero. Invented in 1837, Morse Code is an early form of digital communication.
6.The term Orwellian stems from the British novelist George Orwell. His famous works, such as Animal Farm and 1984, allude to the political satire of the former Soviet Union. The term Orwellian can be defined as "a society dehumanized by strict rule" and translated into "strict control".
7.[English]Herbert Reed, Art and Society, Workers Press, 1989, Page 7.
8.In addition to the "knots" in prehistoric societies in archaeological records, there is also evidence that fabric is once the language of Peruvian culture, when there was no written language, and one of the clearest language until the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.
9.[Canada] Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media:The Extensions of Man, translated by HE Daokuan, Yilin press, 2003, Page 10.
10.[Canada] Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, translated by HE Daokuan, Yilinpress, 2003, Page 13.