MATERIAL NOTATION
Conference paper delivered at the Manchester Metropolitan University as part of the ‘Performing Scores / Scoring Performance’ conference in July 2023. Using a visual and material language steeped in relationships to colour, pattern, and traditional processes, textiles begins to translate or score the movements of the body. Referencing instructions, both to inform action, and the textile-making itself, a connection between the way we think about scoring and textiles begins to capture the complexities and simplicities of human movement.
Can textiles begin to make a type of material notation, made physical through functional textile components, and strong visual cues, instructing or leading the body to interact with it in certain ways? What happens when this textile is taken into a new situation or environment? Can the dynamic nature of textiles, with its inherent need to move and respond, become a language of its own in a conversation between body, space, and movement?
