Last week’s Visiting Artist Lecture E(text)iles: New Material Explorations
started out in the Raw Space, but visiting artists and presenters Dena Molner, Daniela Rosner, and David Mellis moved from fantasy to fabrication in the subsequent three-day workshop at CBPA.

In the lecture on April 12, David, Dena, and Daniela discussed their own work and research in regards to the exploration of electronics and traditional materials. The workshop that followed encouraged the integration of electronics on the material level for application in previously uncharted areas of design. The workshop fabrications tested the limits of finely bound books’ technologies, making the most of their compact, durable forms as hand-crafted objects. Books exemplify manual control and dexterity, patience and care, and continuity with the past as they are handed down from one generation to the next. Workshop participants experimented with paper-based electronic books, and discovered how these relatively new objects are becoming sites for unusual and unexpected interactions with material.