rachel beth egenhoefer
rachel@rachelbeth.net
 
news
bio
resume / cv
artist statement
projects
design
teaching
this & that
 
  artist statement

Much of my work stems from an exploration of the connections between textiles and technology on a historical, constructional, and conceptual background.  I am interested in making tactile representations of cyclical data structures in candy and knitting. 

Textiles share historical connections to technology, its object oriented process serving as the blue print for the immaterial processing of computing.  They also share a constructional make-up that interests me more.  Knitting together codes of base-two patterns- knits and purls, zeros and ones.  Cloth provides the comfort and security of an object.  It is tangible code we can see and understand, while giving us the same comfort as our own clothing accessorizing our bodies.

Candy becomes an ideal medium to discuss that which is intangible, to represent that which does not physically exist in a form that evokes all of the senses.  Able to not just see and touch, but also hear, and smell, leading to the ultimate desire of taste and consumption.  Candy in every state of its process is temporal.  Fluctuating in the threshold of temperature candy reaches it’s ideal state to harden.  Only to change again, melting down with the atmospheric influences.   And changing again with it’s desirable consumption.  It’s being exists as a tangible representation of emotional Ferris wheels.

Tying together the processes and objects of my work is the circular looped motion that constructs our actions, desires, and movements.  The cycles of analog to digital information pulsating up and down a wave of electricity.  The obvious cycles of the body’s hunger and fulfillment intertwined with cycles of digestion.  The motion of two hands knitting a string of yarn into cloth.  The motion of our bodies interacting with machines, tensing and relaxing as we negotiate in the space between. Digital information plots points for electricity to flow through.   Textile patterns plot the construction of cloth.  While plotting points, like the grid, order is pure relationship.

Objects make our insecurities about these intangibles comfortable.  They assure our thresholds of belief and decision to trust in these cyclical information systems whether digital, analog, emotional, physiological, or spiritual.   Conscious or unconscious, the algorithmic movement of our bodies interacting with machines negotiates a space between.   This molded space of negotiation functions in the cyclical as does our sprit, mind, machine, and grid. 

I am interested in the intersection where these ideas can meet in artistic, critical, and rhetorical studies.  I am interested in contemporary and historical issues in digital media, traditional craft, pop culture, and modern society.  I do not classify myself as either a ‘digital media artist’ or a ‘fiber artist’ but just simply as an artist.  I strive to create work that goes beyond medium specificity and speaks to larger circles on a creative and conceptual level.