An Architecture of Thread and Gesture

Abstract

An Architecture of Thread and Gesture is a series of three spatial works considering the impact of human gesture on architectural space. The work is drawn from an encounter with Kyoto artist Machiko Agano in 2006. As Agano installed a three-dimensional textile work in a gallery space, the fluid movement of her hands was mapped to generate a series of spatial diagrams. The diagrams reflected a complex series of invisible spatial interactions and offered insight into an alternative way of considering architecture. In An Architecture of Thread and Gesture, these diagrams have been revisited and reinterpreted in three dimensions to offer a new kind of ‘construction’.

Threads of monofilament trace the choreography of the human body moving through space in varying intensities, gradually shifting attention from material traces to the passage of light through surface perforations. Gesture, handwork and materiality are pursued to an extreme before finally dissolving in showers of light.