Crafting the Web

Abstract

The history of craft and textile is a long and gendered one which contemporary artists have picked up on since the 1960s precisely because it tells such a long story. Today, the craftivism of the twentieth century has entered a new phase which also allows artists to reflect on their position both in a post-medium and a post-Internet era. What this article aims to do is to address the question of the contemporary art medium in the Internet age by looking more specifically at what could have been the practice most resistent to an online treatment: textile art. By analyzing works by American and British artists such as Michelle Charles, Tracey Emin, Cat Mazza or Liz Collins among others, we wish to demonstrate that it is precisely this very old and political history of craft as a tactical medium which allows for it to open up so many new media possibilities in the form of knitting videos, wiki-embroidery, fab lab textile creations, and more generally a reconciliation of the digital and the handmade.