Digital Crochet
Digital Crochet Collaborations by Michelle P. Dodson & Olek
Stop-motion photography, keying, compositing, animation, projection design
“A Working Life” in Form & Substance at the InterContinental Miami, 2015
“A Working Life” Framed Projection Art, Worldwide Galleries and Museums
Duration: 3:13 Digital Projection, Wooden Frame
Immersive Installation, The Rumney Guggenheim Gallery, New York City
Music : Grus “Threadless”
About the Collaboration
This body of work explores the shared ephemerality of projected light and crochet, using impermanence as both material and meaning. Through a process of creation and unraveling, crocheted forms made by Olek were carefully dismantled and captured frame by frame by Michelle Penland Dodson, then recomposed into animations. Across installations, digital projections, and architectural mapping, the works reflect cycles of transformation, labor, and flux, honoring artists and practices and expanding the boundaries of what materials and processes can be held as art.
My Role
For this project, I created all of the video animations by unraveling crocheted pieces made by Olek, one knot at a time. I photographed each step of the process, gradually building time-lapse animations of both individual crocheted forms and fully constructed, color-rich pieces. I then used color-keyed versions of these animations to reconstruct compositions tailored to the specific surfaces we were projecting onto, including sculptural elements, walls, and framed areas.
Artists’ Statement
Projected Light and crochet share many qualities that may not be immediately apparent. Both mediums share an ephemeral nature that has become integral to the meaning of this work. The ephemeral nature of both mediums of light and crochet symbolize the impermanent nature of all things and the liberation of attachment. To create the projected content for this installation, Olek spent countless hours producing crocheted elements that were then destroyed as they were unraveled knot by knot, a process which Michelle painstakingly captured frame by frame via stop motion photography. The millions of resulting frames were re-combined then projection mapped onto the installation. This process of creation through destruction mimics the universe’s own creation process where everything is in a constant state of flux. The labor intensive creative process for this work symbolizes the labor of the artists whose work has been forgotten by history due to its ephemeral nature or because it deviated from the lineage of western fine art. It is our intention with this piece to honor and acknowledge both these artists as well as the artists who we feel helped broaden the scope of what can be art and what subjects are appropriate for art.