Anna Lucia: Oefenstof

About

Embroidery is one of the oldest decorative crafts, practiced since the invention of the needle and thread. At some point, embroidered realized they needed a way to record and reference different designs. The solution was the creation of the sampler, a piece of cloth decorated with different motifs. In Oefenstof*, Anna Lucia examines the patterns and representations found in embroidery samplers, the act of recording embroidery work, and the transformation of traditional patterns through algorithmic processes.

Samplers often featured scattered motifs, bands of geometric and decorative borders, animals, floral motifs, and alphabets. Although found across diverse cultures and timelines, similarities can be found across different samplers, often executed in the binary form of a cross-stitch. This duality, stitch or no stitch, resonates with the binary logic of computation. Anna Lucia explores this intersection by reinterpreting traditional embroidery motifs using computer algorithms.

Anna Lucia has built her own library of embroidery samplers using custom code and an embroidery machine. Historically, embroidery samplers were not only tools for record-keeping but also served educational purposes and functioned as aptitude tests for young girls learning the craft. By automating both the pattern-making and execution of the embroidery, the process questions the role and value of craft in an era of rapid technological acceleration and growing intimacy with our machines as collaborators.

In her experimentation, Anna Lucia applies well-known algorithms such as cellular automata and XOR patterns. Yet, their typical digital aesthetics are obscured by the constraints of the embroidery machine and the unpredictable dialogue between artist and computer, aided by randomness. These limitations give rise to new, labyrinth-like abstractions that emerge beneath the binary surface of the original patterns.

The digital artwork Thread makes the underlying patterns visible again. It is based on the same algorithm as the embroidery work, but it uses the capabilities of its medium, the browser, resulting in a constantly evolving animation.

*oefenstof translates from Dutch to “practice fabric” or “practice material” and is borrowed from the book Oefenstof by Joke Visser, a history of embroidery samplers from The Netherlands.