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Digital

Handicraft
Libby McGuire
Visual Communication
Senior Exhibit 2014
Contents
Artist Statement / 4
Initial Research / 5
Turning Point / 7
Final Plan & Process / 9
digital handicraft / 2
Artist
Statement
As society moves towards total digital immersion it is
important to hold onto the crafts and techniques that have
shaped our visual and creative consciousness thus far.
Modern graphic design works on the edge of new digital
technology, but it is a descendant of traditional art and
craftsmanship.
This project explores the continuum of physical and digital
creation. It exists at the crossroads of art and technology.
It recognizes the prevalence of digital art and design while
emphasizing the value of physicality and of handiwork.
Libby McGuire is a designer. She works primarily with a
MacBook and Adobe software, but informs that work with
experience with drawing, sewing, and knitting.
digital handicraft / 4
Initial
Research
I began thinking about the relationship between pixel art and cross
stitch more than a year before I began planning this project. In
my initial research I looked at pixel art, pointillism, traditional cross
stitch, and contemporary cross stitch patterns.
I planned to use quotes to speak directly about the relationship
between art & technology. I looked at original digital typefaces
(such as Apples iconic Chicago typeface, top right on the opposite
page) and modern recreations (such as Zuzana Lickos Lo-Res,
middle right on opposite page). I was also interested in how text
in raster/bitmap images presented through different colored pixels
(bottom left).
5 / digital handicraft
raster graphics
image, or bitmap
a dot matrix
data structure
representing a grid
of pixels, or points
of color. This page, clockwise: top left,
CMYK embroidery by Evelin
Kasikov, Chicago typeface,
pointillism detail by Georges Seurat,
Lo-Res typeface by Zuzana Licko,
Detail of enlarged raster W, Lego
Mona Lisa. Opposite page: left,
Star Wars cross stitch pattern,
traditional cross stitch example.
Turning
Point
I hit a wall with text. It wasnt saying what I wanted it to say. I
eventually realized that this relationship of digital and physical is
experienced in life through use and cannot be summed up through
words, whether others or my own. I decided to make an image-
based piece. I continued my research in a more technological vein.
I gathered information about the development of the graphical
user interface for the personal computer, glitch art, compression
artifacts, and the usage of computer data in physical art.
I decided to use an image of the motherboard from the frst Apple
computer, the Macintosh 128k, because it was the frst consumer
level computer to have a graphical user interface.
7 / digital handicraft
Macintosh 128k
released in 1984.
the frst consumer
level computer to
have a graphical
user interface.
screen resolution of
512x342ppi with a
8Mhz processor and
400 KB of storage.
This page, clockwise: top left,
Macintosh 128k motherboard,
Apples (examples of nearest
neighbor, bilinear, and bicubic
visual data interpolation algorithms),
binary data interpreted as textiles
through jaquard looms by Philip
Sterns, example of compression
artifacts in images. Opposite page:
Macintosh 128k and 2013 Mac.
Compression
artifact
a noticeable
distortion of media
caused by lossy
data compression.
Final Plan
& Process
I compressed the image of the motherboard to 20 inches squared
at 10 ppi (which means that each inch is 10 pixels tall and wide,
resulting in 100 pixels contained in each square inch for a total of
40,000 pixels). I edited the compressed image in Photoshop to
bring out the colors of the components. I matched the web-safe
colors of the image to DMC brand embroidery threads.
I transferred to canvas using solvent transfer, in which acetone
is applied to the back of a laser printed image and through
burnishing a mirror of the image is transfered to another surface,
in this case cotton canvas. I then used the transfer as a stamped
cross stitch pattern, where the stitching follows the image on the
fabric rather than a separate color coded map.
9 / digital handicraft
This page, clockwise: top left,
in-progress cross stitch, web-safe
colors, in progress transferring,
crop of compressed and edited
motherboard image. Opposite
page: in-progress transfer.
Final
Solution
11 / digital handicraft
This project is a process of merging technologies to create one
piece. By taking an photo of a tangible item, editing it, transferring
it to fabric, and then cross stitching over it, I worked through
both physical and digital processes of creation. I took something
physical that served a digital purpose, made it digital, and then
made it into a physical artifact again through handicraft.
Designed by Libby McGuire.

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