boundary system: garments/fashion/clothes & bodies.

I'm interested in how clothes on a body can manipulate and transform the boundaries of each other. The clothes themselves bend and fold in relationship to the contours of the body; the bodies have a new silhouette that is ruled by the stitchings and texture of the clothes. It's an interesting set of boundary system because they depend on the other for the new form. I did some research in the library, looking at fashion books that talks about the manipulation of the body and clothes. Here are some pictures I took that I found interesting in the books.



This is a garment that covers the entire body and manipulates the silhouette into a cone. The boundaries of the body are now completely hidden and changed from what we can see visually.



In this image, the body boundaries have changed in terms of contours. But visually, we can still see the body inside as well as the garments themselves. I find this relationship interesting because it challenges what boundaries are for this specific system --- wearing something like a see-thru garment over the body would create what kind of a boundary? Visually, we can still see everything, and the wearer would still feel exposed as if they were a naked body. So do see-thru garments constitute as successful boundaries of which clothes are suppose to set for bodies?

One unit of measure I choose for this is by the number of different patches of fabric that are attached and sewn together to create the clothes, and the other unit of measurement is by number of heads. In fashion, it is common to use heads to measure bodies in order to determine where the neck is placed or where the waist lies, etc. I've always enjoyed this form of measurement for the body because it is so subjective to the individual's head shape. There are no exact numbers involved.

I'm more interested in the clothes as boundaries for the bodies (as opposed to the vice versa). At my studio, I experimented with this on my dressform and made this random motif for the shoulder/neck area -




It was interesting because the fabric I used was transparent organza, and that is see-thru material if you only use one layer of it (which goes back to my question about see-thru garments as boundaries). But I bunched it up in layers and it not only created a new silhouette for the shoulders and neck, but it is also no longer see-thru. "Successful" --- in accordance to what supposed clothes boundaries are for the body.

Boundaries Of A Song

I chose to measure the boundaries of a song both in and outside of the mind. Below are my measurements scanned from my sketch book. I used the measurement of breath and the measurement of recollection. These are explained in my notes below. The song used is (appropriately) called "Shapeshifter" by Animal Liberation Orchestra. An (unfortunately poor quality) recording of it is below.

-Eliana

Embrace as Boundary of Connection System (some power of bendable tines in Limited Fork Theory)

I've always thought embrace to be powerful
and even more so today, thanks to Eliana's bringing of integrity to class
and the weaving of integrity (or its absence) into considerations
of boundary formation, boundary maintenance, boundary experience.

so in embrace, in hug, there is also interlocking, a weaving of (figurative or physical) arms;
there is what ann marie adams depicts here:
and at fine art america.


It is a form of weaving, a form of building a responsive bridge, one able to bend, yield, extract something from a partner, yet retain some of its own integrity when the embrace, for it is not permanent, ends —or is, rather, I could say, suspended, so as to allow for resumption of embrace. The connective experience of existence may be configured as series of interrupted embraces. Moments of attachment and tethering intersperced with moments of separation in which there may be resonance of embrace leading to desire, need for more physical embrace, and not just the memory which is free to transform within the boundaries into other shapes, other measure of imaginary intensity.

A weave connection permits more contact; more surface area becomes subject to influence; mixing can be more intense. There is the making of crossroad after crossroad as warp and weft elements crisscross, horizontal bridging alternating with vertical bridging —such tines!

And so much meaning is also woven into such connections; indeed, yarn is also passing through the loom of fingers


and the looms of democracy, commerce, identity, ambition; the looms of embrace of landscape and ourselves:



Into my genetic identity is the embrace of multiple races, one that persists even when entities and forces break the loom of human embrace with temporary (even hundreds of years is temporary because of an overriding configuration of temporariness of stuff in the universe) bouts of prejudice, bigotry, discrimination —I do not become undone; what is woven into me remains locked in embrace that does not conflict, does not confuse me, does not beg me to chose anything other than being woven.



This wasn't why one of my favorite toys as I grew up was Remco's The Little Red Spinning Wheel until now. It is my in basement. Tonight, it comes off of its high shelf and is temporarily, for that is the nature —so far— of all things, reinstated into service.

—I can't believe I haven't bothered to photograph my little red spinning wheel, something I won't be able to say truthfully after tonight—

First Boundary Exploration

The first boundary I chose to explore, was the boundary of a footprint (barefoot and/or the print of a shoe.) I experimented both barefoot and with my shoes on in the snow, and then I froze a shoe print making a mold of ice. First, I was focused on the shape of these markings and how the boundaries seemed very prominent. The barefoot print was invisible to the human eye, which would make the boundary almost non existent, allowing the footprint to go unseen for as long as it survives. BUT even though we can't see it, does not mean that it doesn't exist. (Maybe I'm actually focusing on the boundaries of invisibility? Perhaps.)

Next, I focused on the snowy footprints. I realized that footprints can be connected, to form a larger print, and sometimes even patterns. Through the snowy experiment, I came to the conclusion that I don't believe footprints have set boundaries, and they can be manipulated and morphed into something that in the end, isn't even a footprint at all.

For the remainder of the class however, I really want to focus on body boundaries. Throughout my 6 semesters at this university, I have had the resources and opportunity to focus on health issues, body art, sickness, and many other issues regarding the human body, both positive and negative. Recently I watched a film about a man who was basically a "vegetable." He was paralyzed from the neck down, but his brain was fully functional, yet he was stuck. He wanted to speak, he couldn't. He wanted to hug his wife, he couldn't. His body was containing him and there was nothing he could do about it.

SOME JOY OF BOUNDARIES (a limited fork theory attempt at celebration)

how else to focus? to mean something by point of view?

Many stories of boundary systems are also stories, at some point,
of deterioration of some aspect(s) on some scale(s) in some location(s)
of that system. Many boundary systems have holes in them, or develop holes, gaps,
(sometimes as an outcome of an interaction with other systems framing information
which includes experience, or holes
can be poked in them (forced framed, or forced rescue framing)
at microscopic or much larger levels.

Perhaps the boundary systems shifts a bit, is recalibrated
by willful and/or involuntary events (temporarily) converging
on some scale[s] in some location[s].

Maybe that infamous butterfly wing flutters.

The fluttering itself may seem soundless to those whose ears cannot experience
(for a number of reasons,including boundaries of human range of hearing)
those vibrations as sound, but that movement, those vibrations are a song
(not limited to the song in the following moving picture):


Next, some impact fluttering, the splash-effect embrace as some interior surface migrates to exterior surface, some components of the splash becoming limited-distance, limited-range projectiles upon impact with another projectile traveling at least about 3,000 feet per second



Should these impacts be framed with beauty? Wondrous? exposure of what such speed usually withholds from human vision, aesthetic appreciation —some speed-masked dance, well-mapped
until the end when the music stops. If we could se this all the time, gracefully explosive impacts, would we arrange for more?




Sometimes boundaries may seem cruel, inhumane, may apparently
impede humanity's progress in any number of humanity's sometimes conflicting
quests for what might improve humanity from the point of view system of those
seeking particular forms of change.


Details we we get them: a system of framing and reframing


A temporarily better framing system may come along.

The scene may be renovated, cosmetics applied that may greatly affect
only aspects of the scene's surface system —what are the limits of surface?
Maybe before proceeding to what some consider depth, more time should be spent
with surface systems, including magnified time so as to see/hear/experience

more of the surface system.

A Nine-Year-Old Girl from Tuscon framed two ways
(measured by different systems of consider, different increments of meaning
[—watch for framing systems within framing systems]):