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The textile expression gap

Lars Hallnäs

There is always a certain gap between form as definition, the way in which material builds a thing, and expression as that which displays a thing in concreto. In textile design this gap is rather specific and to some extent paradoxical in nature.

We define (design) a ‘traditional’ house, car, chair, table and then we build it. There is a gap between the abstract form, as a definition, and the concrete gestalt of the house, the car, the chair, the table. Being able to define doesn’t necessarily mean you can build it, it doesn’t necessarily mean you understand and can master possible relevant means of expression.

It is not only that there is a gap between the abstract (form) and the concrete (expression), but there is also a gap between different sets of skills and practices. It is a challenge to bridge these gaps, yet nevertheless, in many cases, something you need to be able to do. The painter, the composer, must take on such a challenge in different ways, and the same goes for the craftsperson who designs and builds the chair. To build a house or a car is a different story and there the gap is certainly very present.

In all these cases it is rather clear what we mean when we say that the actual house, the actual car and so on, express (display) a form (a definition), the gestalt of the house, the car. It is also rather clear what we mean when we talk about the expressiveness of the materials that build the house, the car and so on. The difference between form, the way in which material builds the house, the car, and expression, that which displays the house, the car, is quite clear. There is a gap that is clear by nature in some non-trivial sense. We are dealing here with solid things.

A textile is typically something we form, shape, as a garment we wear, as a textile thing we use. These are textiles as flexible, adaptable and responsive things.

But what is the form, the expression of a towel, of a jacket? It is not only that there is something ambiguous, evasive about the notion of form in these cases that makes the question difficult to grasp, but there is also the expressional gap between the textile thing and the textile itself. The textile formula defines the way in which the yarn builds the textile and the yarn is at the same time that which displays the formula. Although this does not directly explain the expressions of a towel, it is still both a formal and material foundation.

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What happens if we use this elementary foundation in a systematic way to form a textile design aesthetics? Form being the textile formula – the way in which the yarn builds the textile thing, and the yarn the expression – that which displays the textile thing. To bring the things back home to this elementary foundation is in some non-trivial sense what characterises textile thinking (ArcInTex 2019).

Now we are dealing with textiles as flexible, adaptable and responsive things.

There is a surface, texture, but no shape (gestalt); a textiles has no form, it is not a thing, it is material.

Textiles have no shape (form), but a definition and that is somehow the form. It is not a thing, it is just form.

Form and material collapse into a definition (the textiles design formula). This is a form-material paradox (Hallnäs 2018).

This collapsing of form and material into a definition is one way to express the core of textile thinking.

Forget form, forget material, see the definition and its logic – the process of formalising.

See the surface, feel the texture – the process of materialising.

In a near field reading of a textile it dissolves into a definition, a textile formula. In that sense a definition is what builds a textile; the yarn is the all-important link with which it is written.

But as we use a textile thing, the textile itself becomes a material, i.e., it builds the textile thing.

To make sense of this ‘paradox’ is somehow a basic problem in textile design aesthetics. It is a ‘paradox’ that builds the textile expression gap, i.e., the gap between the textile design formula that defines the textile as material and the expression of the textile things it builds in use.

Take the example of a plaid. The wind forms the plaid as you pick it up, and wrapping it around yourself forms it again, as you sit there in the cold wind feeling a bit warmer. The textile formula is there somewhere in the background setting the boundaries, the yarn more in the foreground expressing the given plaid in some sense; it is after all the yarn that displays the plaid as a thing.

So, we might think of the formula, the weaving pattern, the knitting pattern and so on as the form of the plaid, and the yarn as its expression. What would that mean?

Why is this discussion about form and expression important, interesting? We could say it is the use of the plaid that is important, and that it is the use of the plaid that defines what it is. That does not help very much in the process of designing and making. We design and make something, and then we may use it.

It is clear that use defines and redefines what that something is. But we still initially define and make something, and it is through form and expression that we express that something. These notions are central in the foundation of designing and making, as they help us to grasp what it means to design and make things, and thus provide a conceptual foundation for the development of methodological and technical tools.

This is a theoretical discussion where we look for interpretations and explanations useful in the design and making processes, not a philosophical discussion concerning the true meaning of ‘form’ and ‘expression’, what the ‘form’ of a textile really is.

The textile formula defines the way in which the material builds the textile, ‘material’ then refers to the yarn we use. This is ‘form’ in its most elementary sense, and does not directly refer to the shape, the gestalt of a three-dimensional thing.

We could say that this also applies to a correspondent definition of the form of a house. But there is a fundamental difference here: we can derive the three-dimensional gestalt of the house from its elementary form, whereas that does not make sense for the textile. This makes it in some sense natural to relate the textile formula more to matters of expression.

But what would form then be? Given the textile paradox, it is well motivated to use the textile formula as the basic notion of form of textiles since it provides for a simple and clear interpretation and explanation of them as flexible things.

It is, in some sense, a bit strange to say that a given textile is a ‘carpet’ in answer to the question ‘what is this?’ Yes, that is the intended use of the thing. But a more precise initial answer would be to present its definition, the form that defines what it is as an elementary textile thing.

Expression is a notoriously difficult notion to grasp with precision. Intuitively we know what we are talking about. But how could we introduce this concept in a more precise and suggestive manner, as a foundational notion of aesthetic design? Not what it ‘really’ is, but as a notion theoretically useful.

Saying that the expression of a thing is that which displays the thing is to say that it is a presentation, that which turns an idea into a thing. Means of expression are the tools and things we use to actually make the thing, the materials, the techniques.

What is it that actually displays a textile thing? For just any thing we could say that use is what displays the thing, moving in to a newly built house, working once again with the well-used old camera, climbing up the mountain in your new jacket, making the table using that special tablecloth, etc.

This is certainly true in some sense, but there is something invariant across different contexts and different forms of use that so to speak display the thing as such. It is a trivial fact that there always is a context, but it is equally true that we can see the specific identity of things in any given context. In the process of designing and making, it is the form and expression of these elementary things that are in focus, even if our work is guided by intended use for things in certain given contexts. What these things display is not use, but properties that are more elementary, that build the thing as such as something invariant across use and contexts.

Take the computer keyboard in front of me. What is it that displays this thing as such? I see the plastic keys, the printed symbols on the keys, the aluminum frame, its angle in relation to the table, the colours of the frame and the keys, the size of the frame and so on. One way to answer the question, which I feel is very natural, is to say that the expression of the keyboard are these things in their places.

What is it that puts all these different things in their places? Making of course. But “their places” that is what the form of the keyboard defines. This is the meaning of the idea that form defines expression.

So given a, woven or knitted, textile we can say that the expression of the textile is the yarn in its places. The places of the yarn then being defined by the textile formula.

Compare this with Hanslick’s characterisation of music as ‘tönend bewegte(n) Formen’ (Hanslick 1854).

The textile expression gap is this divide between textiles as these elementary things and textiles as they are defined in use, the everyday flexible thing we use to wear, to furnish our living spaces, things that surround us everywhere in one way or another. What the elementary thing does is to open up a space for definition by use in a very specific manner.

For the textile as an elementary thing, ‘its place’ is defined by the textile formula, whereas for the textile thing in use it is me that defines ‘its place’ within the boundaries given by the form of the elementary thing.

I put the textile thing on the floor and it becomes a carpet, but a carpet is also something I can fold and put away, ‘its place’ now becomes points in space. This transformation is quite different in nature from what happens when I put away the computer keyboard where the internal relation between different keys does not change.

For the elementary textile, ‘its place’ in more abstract terms refers to a pattern that of course does not change during the transformation of folding a carpet and putting it away, or the transformation that takes place as I put on my favorite jacket. The pattern is invariant under transformations of use, the gestalt, the shape of the everyday textile things is on the other hand not invariant under transformations of use (see Landahl 2015).

We have a thing A where it is rather clear what form and expression is all about. Through intentions and adaptations, we turn A into a thing B defined by use. In B, we can always, by focusing and bracketing, see A, but we cannot see B in A. The central issue here is what B is as a thing.

What would it mean to say that the expression of B is A in ‘its places’ and consequently that the form of B is what defines these places? What we do is that we in use put A in certain places, places that A makes possible. Not points in a three-dimensional space, but ways of use, the ways we dress, the ways we furnish.

What is specific to the textile expression gap is that the distinction form-material somehow seems to disappear. It is not centered around the idea of materialising form, it is the gap between A and B, where A basically is the central invariant of B.

There is really no need for a notion of material in textile design aesthetics. This might seem a bit strange, but it is no more strange than the textile design paradox itself.

Textiles are flexible and responsive things. What does that mean? We could say that here we have material we form in the use of textile things, it is material we can bend and twist – the rubber band geometry. But we could also say that there is no material here.

The yarn, in its places, expresses the ‘building’. But the ‘building’ itself is abstract, it is just form. The basic invariant. Yarn is not material then, but means of expression. We do not use the yarn to build something, it is already built. We use it to display what we already built.

The elementary textile is in that way abstract as a thing. Or the boundaries of a thing in use.

What is useful with such a theoretical framework is, among other things, that we can handle the idea of textile precision in a reasonable simple manner. The idea of precision becomes a very complex issue if we think of the elementary textile in mechanical or topological terms.

In relation to the elementary textile, we can view textile precision as a quality of the way in which the yarn ‘in its places’ displays the textile formula, i.e. the abstract textile thing. Precision, the quality of being exact. Here the exactness of expression, an aesthetical notion.

References

ArcInTexETN Research Program (August 2019), http://www.arcintexetn.eu/research/research-program/ [accessed 27 October 2023].

Hallnäs, L., ‘The Textile Thinking Paradox’, in E. Kurbak, ed., Stitching Worlds (Berlin: Revolver Publishing, 2018), pp. 18–25.

Hanslick, E., Vom Musikalisch-Schönen: Ein Beitrag zur Revision der Ästhetik der Tonkunst (Leipzig: Rudolph Weigel, 1854).

Landahl, K., ‘The Myth of the Silhouette – on Form Thinking in Knitwear Design’, University of Borås Studies in Artistic Research 16 (2015).