STITCHING AS STORAGE
It’s generative, by nature
Artworks from my series 'Stitching as Storage' series explore how textiles can store, index, and arrange ecological data in meaningful ways that allow us to access and recite ephemeral data.
To retrieve the biodata of plants, sensors are directly attached to the plant to record the changes in electrical conductivity that transpire through the stomata: a direct channel between the plants’ internal autonomous systems and the conditions of the external world. Each significant change within the stomata is communicated to the sensor, initiating the recording process. This biodata is then sonified and notated as a rhythmic composition, where each embroidered line signifies the duration of an 1/8th note, encoding the magnolia's biological rhythms into geometric harmony.
Conforming to the principles of aleatoric composition, the rhythm is dependent on the “random” entropy as determined by the plant’s biological activity at the time of recording. The stitches articulate a rule-based compositional procedure that notate the “beat” of the plant. The choice of stitching with two color values nods to the most basic form of computer code: base-2, wherein two binary values are utilized to constitute conversation, or in this case, rhythmic notation.
MAGNOLIA
presented by Sothebys Metaverse | Gamma.io
•
Magnolia is composed of 4032 hand-embroidered cotton stitches on a grid-based cotton cloth canvas. Embedded within the geometric abstraction is a cryptographic aleatoric notation derived from the rhythmic biodata of the magnolia. Recognized as one of the first flowering plants during the Cretaceous period 100 million years ago, the magnolia is a primordial bloom that embodies wisdom and perseverance due to its existence within and throughout deep time
The artwork is inscribed on sat # 1945185800000000 (Aug 9, 2023, 11:56 AM), a satoshi that was mined on the day the magnolia biodata was originally obtained
Magnolia debuted through Sothebys Metaverse in collaboration with Gamma.io, as part of the “Natively Digital: Art on Bitcoin” on 22nd May 2024
Link to Sotheby’s
Magnolia, (ed. 1/1), Mia Forrest, 2024, hand embroidery (cotton thread, cotton cloth), 650mm x 650mm (25.5 x 25.5in).
Artwork attached to cotton rag matboard, encased in a Tasmanian Oak Frame, museum-grade ultra vue glass
Digital Medium: Ordinal Inscription, .webp, Sat # 1945185800000000, (Aug 9, 2023, 11:56 AM), a satoshi that was mined on the day the magnolia biodata was originally obtained
REMNANTS
TRUE NORTH: From the Forest Floor (group exhibition), Grafton Regional Gallery
curated by Chris Willcocks
Remnants is a diptych composed of 8,896 hand-embroidered silk stitches on a grid-based cotton cloth canvas. Embedded within the geometric abstraction is an aleatoric notation derived from the rhythmic biodata of two species from the Booyong Flora Reserve: the Giant Water Gum, a native tree (and largest known in the world), and the Cats Claw Creeper, an introduced and invasive species. Within an ecosystem, these two have a tensile relationship, explored in the accompanying audio piece. The audio showcases the rhythmic pulses from each plant, assigned to the L and R channels, respectively, thank you to Sam Pankhurst for the audio experience
Conceived as an ongoing iterative exhibition at Grafton Regional Gallery, True North showcases the dynamic and diverse practices of artists living and working in the Northern Rivers
In True North: From the Forest Floor, guest Curator Christine Willcocks draws on her deep connection to the region’s rich biodiversity, selecting artists who respond intrinsically to the landscapes around them. Subtropical rainforests, Big Scrub, and coastal littoral forest provide a common thread for artists working across painting, installation, sculpture, film, sound, and performance.
Remnants (fig. 1 Syzygium francisii, Fig. 2 Dolichandra unguis-cati, 2025, hand embroidery silk thread on cotton cloth, 122cm x 86cm x 5cm
Artwork attached to cotton rag matboard, encased in a Tasmanian Oak Frame, museum-grade ultra vue glass
Framed at Blueboy studio, Mullumbimby
Artist Notes:
I often turn to the natural world as a source of influence; nature inherently contains generative and algorithmic systems, from the fibonacci sequences in leaf arrangement of plants and shell structure, to cymatic patterns observable in sound and vibration, to murmurations in both birds and fish, to lissajous curves realized through gravity… as an artist my challenge is to somehow build a practice methodology around these systems to make them quantifiable and actionable.
This has been realized through my series Seasons where phenology merges with wave and vibrational phenomena (cymatics) which takes the sonified biodata from plants to generate cymatic patterns. In my Stitching as Storage series, I am utilizing the biodata of botanicals as random entropy to compose aleatoric rhythmic patterns, which are then stitched into cloth.
The frame of thinking that artworks can be ‘generative, by nature’ was a phrase first introduced to me by Misha de Ridda in his series of the same name, and a fantastic resource to refer to has been Peter Bauman’s editorial historic survey of generative art on Le Random, which posits the lineage of generative art today brewing from many developments in mathematical and algorithmic discoveries since the pre-modern era (from c. 70,000BCE).
Recently I’ve been reading Philip Galanter’s robust writings (see: Chapter 5: Generative Art Theory from A Companion to Digital Art, First Edition, 2016, edited by Christiane Paul) on what defines generative art today, detaching the synonymously intertwined “computer art” and “generative art” from one another; generative art is “any art practice where the artist uses a system [...] computers did not pave the way for generative art; generative art helped to pave the way for computers”. I am catching the ball he is throwing.