Deer Isle, Maine, 2002
The Digital and the Hand conference was a gathering at Haystack
Mountain School for the Crafts in collaboration with the Massachusetts
Institute for Technology Media Lab. The October 2002 event involved
fifty senior artists and educators exploring potential relationships
of digital and craft media. Philip Beesley presented a geotextile
installation to the conference composed of interlinking units with
flexible joints that made a floating transparent lattice. The units
were fabricated from resilient acrilyic sheets using a laser cutter.
Working with members of the Lifelong Kindergarten Unit within
the MIT Media Lab, miniature computers operating vibrating actuators
and controlled by light sensors were attached to each unit of the
lattice. The construction resulted in a reflexive fabric that responded
to the presence of viewers.
