Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
— Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”
Crafty lore is full of tales of cultures around the world where makers intentionally introduce a flaw into otherwise expert work — to avoid competing with the perfection of the divine, or to allow spirits to escape. There seems to be a fair amount of fiction at play, but it’s an idea that resonates — imperfection is its own kind of perfection.
Meanwhile in the machine embroidery world, along with so many other digital arts, we spend lots of time and energy to make designs as smooth and polished as possible. Tokyo fashion designer, musician, and artist Nukeme turns all this on its head — intentionally introducing errors into digital design files for knitting and embroidery machines, then stitching the wonderfully weird results.
Much of Nukeme’s work tweaks familiar corporate logos…
Here’s a closer look at how Nukeme introduces glitches into the embroidery:
[vimeo 60466854 w=500 h=281]
And a fascinating look at glitch knitting:
[vimeo 64293934 w=500 h=281]
See more of Nukeme‘s work at The Creators Project, and read an interview at Irenebrination!
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Gear Threads is brought to you from the offbeat gals at Urban Threads. Created by illustrator Niamh O’Connor, Urban Threads is revolutionizing machine embroidery one edgy, elegant, innovative, and/or offbeat design at a time. Discover the future of digital stitchery at www.urbanthreads.com.
