Today I’m aiming to complete a human torso.
I’m naturally finding that any open areas feel right when I pack them with details akin to previous works. In the 2 example works I gave a few posts ago, I was sewing actual costumes for myself and for other performers. It never seemed enough to simply have a fluorescent colour shirt or walking trousers, they needed to be so densely packed with tapes, ropes, reflectors, compasses, bobbles and hazard markings that the performers would begin to look more like ordinance survey maps than the people that use them. Like a dense focus-draw in the landscape. Both incongruous, and completely ‘of’ a contemporary landscape- waterproof, hi-viz, branding, the lot.
Coming back to maps for a moment, it is interesting that so many designs and logos used by ordinance survey and other mapping firms- Chevrons, double stripes, dash stripes, strings of diamonds, dots, contours et al; find their way into outdoor clothing design. As if we feel safer because of the likeness our clothing has to maps and mapping…
