The Materiality of Tapestry in The Digital Age

Abstract

Traditional definitions of materiality value physical matter as an essential quality. Because digital images are less physically permanent objects, they are less likely to be classed as “material” in the same way. Yet as contemporary makers increasingly turn to digital content as the source of inspiration or imagery for their works, it is now often possible to experience digital content away from a screen—when translated to a new, more traditionally “material” medium. Artists Erin M. Riley and Phillip David Stearns approach their translations of digital images to fiber quite differently, but their resulting tapestries can be seen as preserving the social interactions that distinguish their original digital context. Paul M. Leonardi defines materiality as the interaction between people and things, and this article uses his approach to consider Riley’s and Stearns’ translated tapestries as both valuations of physical materiality and of the interaction-based social materiality of their original digital context. While digital images and tapestry may in some ways seem to oppose one another, the interconnections between photography, digital images, and tapestry demonstrate the similar histories of these media that explain the material richness to be gained when working across them. These new formations between digital art and craft reveal the ways in which new and old media borrow from each other’s histories and material associations, and how the material shift in the works of Riley and Stearns proves essential to our recognition of these works as art objects.