Cable stitch

Current work (incomplete). Kim-Ling MORRIS

Nearly there. Just some tidying up to do now. Stitched cables. Kim-Ling MORRIS

I've been keeping myself properly busy this last week. It all started with some sample pieces I've made using leftover computer cables that were knocking around the former Government building when Sample-Studios first moved into the space. 

Initially, when I started working with the cables, I tried stitching the grey skins. It's an odd sensation eviscerating the wires from their protective coating,almost like gutting fish. I stitched the skins onto a bit of coffee-bag hessian. The result made me think of a song title I once heard: the Space between the Lines (Tim O'Brien). I liked the sense of void and missingness this technique gave, the hint of wires that were once there, the former function tattooed onto the outside surface and the shininess of the inside like it was lined with a peritoneal fascia.

Cable skin test piece. Kim-Ling MORRIS

Next I tried keeping the wires intact so they spilled out of the sheathing and I wove into them:
LEFT- single wires warp and weft created very open spacing because the plastic coating on the wires made them less flexible and their twist created a twist in the grey skin
MIDDLE - I cut the grey skin which made the weave lose its tension. I also had single wire in one direction and left the twisted cable pairs on the cable direction. Interesting to note that the cable twist frequency varies for each colour. I wonder if this is to do with allowing the bunched cable to bend more easily.
RIGHT - I kept the grey skin intact and used string to wave into the cable wires, keeping them in their twisted cable pairs. There is little resulting tension in the grey skin

Sample of weaving into cable wiring. Kim-Ling MORRIS

This work was the basis for the following piece, In Obsolete Knowledge

In Obsolete Knowledge. Kim-Ling MORRIS

So, coming back to the current piece, the original intent was to combine both techniques: to stitch lines of skins together and make the piece more 3-D using woven cable for the hair. As it turns out, I find that I like the pixelated drawing that the skin stitching creates and feel that this would be lost with additional weave. So perhaps the next piece would use more simplified shapes, allowing an exploration into forming layers of weave over the base stitched skin without the distraction of descriptive lines. The results of this will be for another day.