A frilly hydrophillic

This is the beginnings of a tent roof - a layered up surface of net flounces that will catch water in-between its threads and pass it along down a gradient. It protects you from most levels of rain without completely blocking you from the outdoors. 

                         

 The sun also will come through in a semi -shaded way.

The Human Water Skater

Standing on the edge of a swimming pool, I extended my arms with those long floaty spaghetti things, and played with the surface of the water. After 5 mins or so , I began to get a sense of it as a completely different substance. 

I felt myself to be like a skater or a fly on a lake, no longer something that I could would fall through,  water became a viscous dense form that I could not penetrate. 

There are so many more things I would like to explore: 
Tears, wicking, pressure, sweat, capillary action, ionising, making in the pool...

Rain on my Parade

There is always that feeling that outdoor things are ruined in the rain - perhaps it doesn't have to be that way, can I make an outdoor space that is enhanced by the rain? 

Materials.....Materiality...

I think the studio is a difficult place for this project. It is very hard not to default to the human manipulation of materials in this context , and instead embrace collaboration. It was easier when it was raining on the roof - what can I do to remind myself? 


I need a big bowl of water in the middle of the room to trip over. 

The problem is , when water is trapped, not moving, it dies somehow - I start to have something dead in the room, and I habituate to this. 

Materials : the matter from which a thing is made - referring to the physical rather than mind or spirit

Material Agency: The assumption that non human matter and life has intention. Material Agency is at the centre of a non - anthropocentric view on 'how things happen' - taking a distributed, relational, rather than linear approach.  

Materiality: Materiality in architecture is the concept of, or applied use of, various materials or substances in the medium of building.

Material Semiotics: The idea that relations that are simultaneously material (between things) and semiotic (between concepts).

Holes+Water+Bananafibre

Water does not go through the holes in Banana fibre either - it just hangs there. I wonder what this would be like full size. I wonder how it would work with light going through also. 

Banana Fibre Tent Shell

The banana fibre goes a bit wobbly  when its wet , a bit shrivelly , I like it.

This banana fibre is pretty rough and ready - there is some really beautiful stuff at Fib and Co - FIBandCO 

Carbon+Water+Net

Carbon - a fantastic Water Filter, removes heavy metals, chemicals etc. the stuff I have got here is made for cleaning fish tanks. It is incredibly beautifully black 

It sits nicely in this Camira | Camira Fabrics recycled polyester 

And gives that old net curtain some structure if I sew it in 

My intention is to sew it into fabric to act as shelter, filter and structure at the same time. 

I would like to try it in some other fabric - perhaps the nettle and wool mix - also from Camira 

Fish+Water

So, my fish leather looks lovely, but it is a bit crispy. I think the mackerel is not a big enough fish with thick enough skin to make strong leather out of. Apparently before the tanning process was available the Icelandic people measured distance by how long it took fish skin shoes to wear out when walking it.  

I got some of the tanned stuff from Walter Reginald to compare to my own, it comes in all sort of crazy colours, and all the skins are different, even from the same fish, soft, crunchy, different shapes thicknesses sizes . Each fish skin is apparently as different from each other as each human skins are - pretty obvious but revelationary at the same time. 

Cod Skin

Top to bottom , Wolf fish, Salmon and Cod leather

Something watery with fish skin. 

I wanted to see how Water looks next to fish skin - does anything happen by putting them together - not really in this way anyhow. I like the idea of using fish skin with water, but this stuff just looks like leather, I think I prefer the stuff I tanned myself. I will have to have another go.