Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law & Technology

Fear & Loathing in Artificial Intelligence: ChatGPT Gets Temporarily Suspended in Italy

What did we learn in the last few days? That Artificial Intelligence (AI) is definitely progressing faster than human intelligence. Last week, the by now infamous "Pope in a puffer jacket" images that should have been a mushroom-induced hilarious and circumscribed moment of madness, suddenly turned into a pivotal fashion topic with people speculating about the Pope wearing Balenciaga.

After realizing the Pope does not wear Balenciaga and that the images were produced by AI text-to-image generator Midjourney, the huge case of mass disinformation became an endless debate about AI being a major threat to humanity. After all, by now AI can generate perfect images, videos, texts and even voices, so faking somebody - from a politician to a celebrity - saying something extremely dangerous and inappropriate is extremely easy.

As a consequence, there has recently been a high level of paranoia surrounding Artificial Intelligence: a letter posted on the website of non-profit organisation Future of Life Institute, co-signed by Elon Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang among the others, demanded to take a six-months break in Artificial Intelligence (AI) research.

"We call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4," read the letter. The reason of this call was stated at the beginning of the letter: "AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity."

Now, there are actually several issues about the letter: first of all, the Future of Life Institute (FLI), is primarily funded by the Musk Foundation, so this is not a letter written by an independent organization.

Besides, the definition "more powerful than GPT-4" is rather generic. What does it mean "more powerful"? In which ways? We're not sure, but it sounds like Trump's "super duper missile". The other point is that signatories included Xi Jinping and Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, who actually claimed on Twitter he didn't support the contents of the letter. So, it looks like while AI is generating fake images of the Pope, FLI is generating fake signatories.

But more steps were taken against Artificial Intelligence yesterday: OpenAI took ChatGPT offline in Italy after the government's Garante per la protezione dei dati personali (Data Protection Authority) issued an immediate temporary ban on suspected breach of privacy rules.

if you're in Italy and try to access the site, you will get the following message on your screen: "We regret to inform you that we have disabled ChatGPT for users in Italy at the request of the Italian Garante. We are issuing refunds to all users in Italy who purchased a ChatGPT Plus subscription in March. We are also temporarily pausing subscription renewals in Italy so that users won't be charged while ChatGPT is suspended."

The Garante, accused Microsoft-backed (MSFT.O) OpenAI of a data breach. According to the Garante, ChatGPT doesn't have a disclosure notice to users about data collected by OpenAI, and doesn't have any legal basis that justifies the massive collection and processing of personal data to train the algorithms on which the platform relies.

Besides, according to the Garante, the lack of an age verification mechanism exposes children to receiving responses that are absolutely inappropriate to their age and awareness, even though the service is allegedly addressed to users aged above 13 according to OpenAI's terms of service (and even though the service doesn't allow you to use certain terms; if you invite it to employ foul language, for example, it will tell you something along the lines of: "As an AI language model, I cannot use swear words or any kind of offensive language. My purpose is to provide helpful and informative responses while maintaining a respectful and professional tone").

And so Italy has become the first Western country to take action against a chatbot powered by Artificial Intelligence, placing it alongside China, Hong Kong, Iran and Russia and parts of Africa where residents are unable to create OpenAI accounts.

It is interesting to note how most people seem to be more afraid of other types of damages that AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT may cause. In the past few months, for example, lecturers and teachers in other countries such as Australia complained about students using ChatGPT in schools, wondering if it should be banned from educational institutions as it may have a negative impact on student learning and generate plagiarism, but the discourse wasn't so heated in Italy. There weren't indeed major scandals in Italy at university level with thousands of students getting ChatGPT to write their dissertations and other similar cases.

Cut and paste is an exercise that the Italian government seems to allow, actually: there was indeed a very bizarre "cut and paste" human exercise when a couple of weeks ago Claudio Anastasio, appointed by PM Giorgia Meloni (allegedly on recommendation of Rachele Mussolini, a city councilor in Rome and granddaughter of Benuto Mussolini) to head state-owned company 3-I, sent an e-mail to his board of directors. Anastasio took Benito Mussolini’s 1925 speech to Parliament in which he claimed he took "political, moral and historical responsibility" for the assassination by fascist squads of socialist MP Giacomo Matteotti, replaced the word "fascism" with "3-I" and sent it around. The entire story was rather worrying considering that 3-I is in charge of the digital transformation of public services in Italy and taking into account the fact that the speech in question marked the beginning of a totalitarianism in Italy. Anastasio resigned in the end, but the government is still full of proud "heirs of the Duce", as Ignazio La Russa, president of the Senate and co-founder of Fratelli d'Italia stated in September ("We are all heirs of the Duce," he stated. I personally dissent, I'm no heir of the Duce).

So ChatGPT was banned not on "AIgiarism" grounds, but on privacy grounds. Bizarrely, the Garante never banned social media in Italy on the same grounds. The Garante investigated WhatsApp and eventually ordered it to stop sharing user data with parent company Facebook in 2018, but never blocked it. As for protecting minors, well, you should be 13 years old to use Facebook or Instagram in Italy and 16 to use TikTok, but, obviously, there are kids younger than that using these socials. You must also be 16 years old to use WhatsApp, but, in most cases, kids younger than that age have chat groups on WhatsApp with their school friends that also include some of their teachers.

Usually you ban what scares you and what you don't know because you're too afraid of learning. ChatGPT is pretty scary for some: yes, it can be damaging for students, yes, it can still hallucinate and create incorrect texts, but banning people from accessing it, means to stop all people on Italian territory to experiment with it and learn from its mistakes, understand its powers and limits and eventually leave them behind compared to users in other countries.

Most people do use AI-powered tools as a hobby at the moment, to create art or entertain themselves: we have indeed seen how crochet and knitting enthusiasts use it to create patterns with hilarious results; others use ChatGPT for coding purposes or even to come up with recipes (the latest iteration of the AI behind the bot, GPT-4, should even be able to provide recipe suggestions based on a photograph of the contents of your fridge).

Besides, the new plugins on GPT-4 can enable it to look up data on the web and provide new opportunities for businesses as well, as users may be able to employ the plugins for a variety of applications, from organising a trip to finding a restaurant.

At the moment the priority is not stopping Artificial Intelligence, but training it in a more ethical way, developing new legal and copyright rules to protect one's original work and understand in which fields, including education and productivity, it can improve our lives. So far we know for example that AI can help detecting breast cancer, while researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new AI model that outperforms human pathologists in identifying brain cancer. The system analyzes large volumes of data and accurately classifies glioma, a type of brain cancer, into its two subtypes - oligodendroglioma and astrocytoma - in just a few minutes. The AI model has an accuracy rate of over 94%, compared to the human rate - 75%. The AI system also proved to be more consistent, while human experts' accuracy obviously varies depending on their level of expertise.

Everything can be bad if used for the wrong reasons: you can use WhatsApp to contact your friends based in other countries, but you can use it to stalk and threaten somebody; you can use TikTok to post hilarious videos of your epic fail and gather millions of followers, but you can also use it to offend someone, encourage body dysmorphia and push somebody to become anorexic. And you can use a knife to kill or to cut a loaf of bread. A tool is just a tool, it is the way we employ it that makes the difference. 

Time will tell who's right or wrong in this dispute between the Italian Garante and ChatGPT. In the meantime, OpenAI has now got 20 days to respond to the request of Italy's Data Protection Authority or could risk a fine of up to 20 million euros.

So, yes, in the last few days we have got the confirmation that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is definitely progressing faster than human intelligence. There is instead no ending for human stupidity: ChatGPT may be banned from Italy, but everybody on Italian ground can obviously use a VPN, pretend to be in another country and continue accessing ChatGPT.

Blissfully ignorant of having been banned in Italy, ChatGPT first suggested to do so when I asked what to do in the eventuality it was banned. When I asked again a few hours later, it was still blissfully ignorant of the ban, but suggested to comply with the laws and regulations and even reach out to legal experts for guidance. Who knows, maybe Artificial Intelligence may not be the villain after all.  

Literary Wardrobes: "Poets in Vogue" @ The National Poetry Library, London

In January 2021 at Joe Biden's Inauguration Day, young award-winning poet Amanda Gorman recited her poem "The Hill We Climb". For the occasion Gorman donned a bright yellow coat, white blouse and simple black pencil skirt, accessorising her look with a thick bright red satin Prada headband (the poet collaborated previously with the Italian house). While commenting on her attire may have sounded reductive, there were symbolisms scattered here and there: she had a ring with a caged bird, a nod to Maya Angelou's autobiography "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", and earrings gifted to her by Oprah Winfrey, a personal inaugural tradition that Winfrey started when she gifted Angelou herself the Chanel coat and gloves that she wore when she recited her inaugural poem in 1993.

So, yes, despite it may be frivolous to concentrate your attention on somebody's attire, in many cases garments have the power to reveal something about the wearer or carry an important message, as proved also by the exhibition currently on at the National Poetry Library in London.

Opened in February to coincide with the 60th anniversary of Sylvia Plath's death, "Poets in Vogue" (until 23rd June), explores the links between a poet’s work and attire through the lives of seven female poets.

The exhibition is co-curated by Dr Sarah Parker from Loughborough University and Dr Sophie Oliver from the University of Liverpool, while the installations are created in collaboration with textile conservation display specialist Gesa Werner.

The project started in 2018 with Parker and Oliver examining newspaper clippings, posters, LPs and, obviously, books, but it was slowed by the Coronavirus pandemic. Yet, this extra time allowed the co-curators to ponder more about the exhibition, finding new ways to make sure the protagonists weren't judged according to their appearances.

The idea behind the event wasn't indeed to reduce a poet to a garment, trivialize literature and judge women from their appearance, but consider how clothes or specific items identify writers and contribute to make them. So this exhibition should be considered as an imaginative response to the ways in which these poets wrote and dressed.

It is important to state here that all the designs included in the event were recreated, except a plaid skirt (on loan from feminist booksellers The Second She), worn in 1956 by Sylvia Plath on a trip to Paris. Clothing can communicate a variety of messages and Sylvia Plath’s tartan skirt, neat and pristine, indicates soberness, but also hints at repression. Plath worked as a guest editor at Mademoiselle magazine after her third year of college, so, in some ways, she started her career as a fashion writers.

The event opens with a celebration of American novelist, poet, producer, director, and avant-garde performance artist of South Korean origin, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.

In a picture showing her 1975 performance Aveugle Voix (Blind Voice), Cha, wearing a white sporty ensemble, is portrayed as blindfolded. Her hands hold a roll of fabric with the stenciled words "Me", "Fail", "Words". The display dedicated to her also includes a fanzine that lists the garments she was wearing in 1982, the night she was raped and murdered in New York City, at the age of 31.

Tragedy marked the lives of other women also included in the exhibition, Anne Sexton took her life in 1974. A display dedicated to her features a red dress that she used to wear at readings accompanied by a recording of the poet's voice at Goucher College in 1974. After she died, her daughters felt the red dress represented her and Sexton was cremated in it. The replica of her dress displayed here stands with arms out, in a theatrical yet welcoming gesture that reaches out to the visitors.

Stiff white shirt collars represent instead British poet Stevie Smith, author of "Not Waving But Drowning" (1957): they hint at the theme of repetition in her life, her clothing and poems, and play with the concept of parallels and juxtapositions.

The American poet Gwendolyn Brooks, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1950, was the first African American to receive the prestigious award and here she is celebrated with an installation comprising paper cut outs, photographs, flowers, leftover fabrics and ties, inspired by her 1945 poem "The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith".

There's something powerful and moving in the recreation of Audre Lorde's kaftan: the garment features an asymmetric hand-printed motif that ends up emphasizing on purpose her right chest.

The political Black lesbian poet and thinker had a mastectomy in 1978, but she decided not to wear a prosthetic and symbolically carve out in this way a space not only for herself but also for women similar to her. Clothing often appeared in her writings, in particular in her poems and in her biomythography "Zami: A New Spelling of My Name".

Clothes and accessories as well, such as headdresses and bangles, were important for British poet and eccentric aristocrat Edith Sitwell. Often portrayed wearing striking turbans and hats, Sitwell had a peculiar style resulting from the combination of different historical periods.

In the exhibition she is represented by a three-metre-high dress that Werner created getting her inspiration from a gown worn by Sitwell when she performed as Lady Macbeth at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1950. Suspended from the ceiling, the dress opens up to reveal a small secluded space with a table, a velvet turban and mannequin hands wearing costume jewelry rings. The tent dress in a curtain fabric also hints at theatre and Sitwell, who was often photographed by Cecil Beaton and Horst P Horst, was theatrical in her life, always opting for bright shades, oversized necklaces and striking headpieces.

The focus on just seven women is maybe reductive as there are interesting "uniforms" donned by male poets that may have been included, but the idea was to give the event a feminist perspective and doing so not through perfect but attempted reconstructions.

That said, the theme of the exhibition may be extended and developed further exploring the connections between language, literature and fashion. There would indeed be enough material for a monumental exhibition around these themes: while it would require time and an extensive research through books and bibliographies, letters and photographs in libraries and family archives, such an event would provide us with new points of view on literature and fashion.

It would even be more extraordinary if such an event were accompanied by a dedicated volume of fashion-inspired short stories and verses: in the case of the "Poet in Vogue" exhibition, two writers, Jane Yeh and Amy Key, were indeed commissioned to create new works.

The Court as a Runway & Fashion Discourse in an Absurdist World

Ten or twelve years ago, it was easier to write about fashion: you would see a Prada show and dissect it. Some would love it, others would hate it, but it was something that kept the fashion discourse alive. But time has passed, we have changed and fashion has transformed. We can't complain, changing is good because it usually implies an evolution of some sort. Yet, in our confusing times and absurdist world, it's easy to wonder if we aren't actually devolving, while the fashion discourse has moved from the runway to different spaces and aspects of our lives, becoming maybe more superficial and surreal as well.

For quite a while now a new space has turned into an alternative runway – the court. There are more high-profile court cases nowadays, some of them involving famous people, celebrities or even fashion designers and brands. These cases have obviously shifted the collective attention to the court, turning it into an unlikely locus for the fashion discourse.

The Balenciaga and bondage bear/legal papers case, the Adidas Vs Thom Browne trial and Hermès/Metabirkin saga may have prompted some of us to sit down and study legal texts or even become fluent in legalese, but they also pushed the majority of us to comment about aspects that are not directly related to the cases, to play at being juries, take sides, marvel at exorbitant attorneys' fees and dissect the outfits worn in court.

In the last few days, the collective attention switched onto another prominent court case: actor and wellness advocate Gwyneth Paltrow appeared in a Utah court over a collision at Park City, a luxury ski resort, in 2016. The ski crash accuser, retired optometrist Terry Sanderson, claims that Paltrow allegedly hit him and didn't stop to check upon the incident.

Now, the point about this trial is that nobody really cares about the verdict that should be reached soon. That's not because Paltrow's vagina is not involved in it (a missed opportunity here, considering that it's almost 25 years since she's had the Brazilian wax by the J Sisters that allegedly changed her life…), the reason is that nobody cares about it, period. Yet, the case spawned an incredible amount of features in which law and responsibilities weren't discussed, but Paltrow's wardrobe was meticulously dissected.

Fashion maniacs spotted a cream knitted high-necked jumper by Loro Piana, by now a brand favoured by modern dictators and war criminals à la Vladimir Putin and obnoxious politicians à la Rishi Sunak (must be hell working at Loro Piana and knowing you are dressing these characters…), now also a hit among billionaires obsessed with dubious wellness habits.

Then there was another cream jumper, this time by G Label by Goop (a clever product placement, well done; wearing your own brand at your own trial is so in, but Thom Browne did it first during the Adidas trial), then a green wool coat from The Row, lug-soled boots from Prada and G Label by Goop gold chain jewelry. There was also a dark navy skirt paired with a cashmere-collared button-down and a grey blazer with matching trousers.

The neutral wardrobe, delicate, soft and reassuring, contributed to create an image of credible and relatable innocence, but the designer clothes and the cashmere also pointed at luxury and at a sense of muted power dressing.

For those fashion fans addicted to visually striking over-embellished designs on Instagram, this luxury normcore was a desirable palate cleanser and suddenly opened their eyes to the possibility of practical ensembles made with the most luxurious materials. 

Paltrow's studied wardrobe definitely took center-stage, but there was something else that proved entertaining, the interactions between her and the plaintiff's attorney. "May I ask how tall you are?" asked Kristin Van Orman at a certain point. "Just under 5' 10," replied Paltrow. "I am so jealous!", Van Orman expressed, while Paltrow dramatically commented, "I think I'm shrinking, though…" and Van Orman, "You and me both…I have to wear four-inch heels just to make it 5'5!" "They're very nice," commented Paltrow, obviously lying.

"You're not trained in accident reconstruction?" Van Orman continued later. "Me?" asked Gwyneth, "No". "Neither am I!" answered Van Orman.

While this is pure gold and both Van Orman and Paltrow should be cast as writers or even actors for the false court scenes in "The Good Fight" (imagine Wackner presiding over the "9 ¾ Judicial Circuit" court with Paltrow as witness maybe attached to a drip and injecting herself with vitamins and nutrients like she did during a recent episode of Dr Will Cole's The Art of Being Well podcast…), there were more memorable moments that may have caused writers of legal dramedy series to bang their heads against walls wondering why they never thought about such lines.

Paltrow's lawyer asked: "Private security for my client wanted to bring in treats for the bailiffs for how helpful they've been. So, I wanted to do that transparently and see if there are any objections?"

Unfortunately, they objected, but that was another missed opportunity. What were the treats going to be? A vagina scented candle? A detoxing concoction? A sex-boosting supplement? Phosphatidylcholine (Paltrow's fave intravenous drip)? A cashmere jumper? We have been deprived of another highly entertaining moment here.

How will it end? As stated above, nobody really cares, the case is not important, it is legal fluff, but the clothes and the ensuing fashion discourse, the search for symbolism, innocence and guilt in a cashmere jumper, suddenly are.

But the fashion discourse is permeating all sorts of spheres and social interactions also thanks to new technologies: last week an image of Pope Francis in a chunky puffer coat went viral. Yet those slightly distorted details in the hand or the cross clearly revealed the images had been generated by an AI application.

Created by a 31-year-old construction worker from Chicago who started using the Midjourney Ai image generator after losing his brother and trying to deal with grief, the images were created without any malice. While tripping on mushrooms, the Midjourney user in question decided to come up with images of the Pope in Moncler and Balenciaga's oversized designs.

The results of his prompts - quite good to be honest with Artificial Intelligence borrowing elements from the papal cassock such as the fascia (sash) and the buttons and reapplying them onto the puffer - were first posted on Reddit together with other similar versions and they unexpectedly went viral on social media, firing up the Intenet and causing alarm and positive or negative reactions among those who thought the images were real. The Pope genuinely looked chill in a puffer, a concept that generated more fashion gossip in our absurdist world.

And so fashion has become a key ingredient of the absurdist world we're living in, a distraction and a guilty pleasure, while more important and more tragic things take place all around us. There are boats with migrants in distress in the Mediterranean and Bansky's Louise Michel boat (a humanitarian ship funded by the British street artist) was seized in Lampedusa by Italian authorities after rescuing 178 refugees and migrants, as it violated the new protocols introduced by Italy's far-right government.

There's still civil unrest in Israel where the government planned to assert greater control over the Supreme Court; school shootings never stop in America; the war in Ukraine is continuing; unaddressed climate change keeps on causing natural disasters.

Yet we are spellbound by a court wardrobe exercising its magnetic and subtle power upon us; we are caught into a web of complex fashion speculations sparked by an Artificial Intelligence-generated image created out of boredom during a 'shroom trip.

Maybe this is a failed and faulty version of a world in an endless multiverse, and somewhere else there are better versions of us, living better lives, without useless court cases in which a luxury jumper is more important than the actual facts discussed in the trial. Or maybe, who knows, we are being sucked into a cultural void as powerful and nonsensical as the bagel in Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Maybe one day we will have influencers peacocking outside the courts rather than outside fashion shows and the fashion discourse will mutate again, become even more marvellously superficial than it already is. Then we will know that the void has sucked us in forever. But, till then, you can be sure there will be more high-profile court cases or more bizarre AI generated images to distract us from the issues that truly matter and that we will once again get consumed by the sensationalism of these frivolous yet irrestistible fashion diversions.

The Three Stripes Matter, According to Adidas (Well, Maybe)

Are you the owner of a brand, company or organisation with a logo featuring three-stripes? In case you are, you should get worried as Adidas may be after you. After sueing fashion designer Thom Browne for his use of stripes, Adidas has indeed targeted Black Lives Matter.

Fighting racism and violence against the Black community and rising to attention after the death in 2012 of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin shot by a neighbourhood watch volunteer, and then gaining more support after the brutal killing of George Floyd, murdered by a police officer in 2020, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation used on a variety of products (clothing, bags, mugs and so on), a yellow three-stripe design.

The group applied for a federal trademark for this logo in November 2020. But, on Monday, Adidas requested the US Trademark Office to reject the application for a trademark featuring three parallel yellow stripes, claiming it could mislead the public and create confusion with its own famous three-stripe mark.

According to the court filings made on March 27th: Adidas has priority in the "Three-Stripe" trademark and "consumers will believe that the goods and services offered under BLM's trademark are associated with or sponsored by Adidas." The brand also claimed that "the goods and services offered by BLM under its proposed trademark are identical to or highly related to Adidas's offerings," and that, if BLM's trademark is approved, it will materially harm Adidas "by eroding consumers' exclusive identification of the three-stripe mark with Adidas."

Today, though, Adidas backtracked without explanation and decided to withdraw the request, but this seems to be the best choice considering that in this case the company may not prevail in court. Graphically, there are some differences regarding the orientations and colours of the stripes, but there is also a precedent, created by this year's trial against Thom Browne.

In 2021, the German sportswear giant filed suit in a New York court against the American designer. The brand claimed that Browne's "Four Bar Design", mainly employed around calves, thighs, and upper arms on his garments, was a trademark infringement and a dilution of Adidas' three-stripe parallel mark, a staple of the brand since the 1940s. As a consequence, Adidas sought injunctive relief and damages allegedly stating that Browne was generating confusion in consumers. In that case the lawsuit claimed: "Thom Browne sportswear and footwear feature three and four stripes in ways that adidas claims is likely to deceive, confuse, and mislead actual and prospective purchasers of adidas’s merchandise".

Adidas lost its credibility in that lawsuit, though, since, over 10 years ago, when it came to the attention of the brand that Browne was using a red, white and blue three-striped trademark, the German sportswear company approached Browne's then chief executive officer and suggested that the designer added a fourth stripe to avoid confusion with Adidas' products. The fourth stripe was agreed in 2007 and first appeared in 2008. Adidas did not object the use of the four stripes in Browne's garments until 2021 when, considering maybe Browne's successes, it decided to file suit. The case closed this year in January when a jury of eight declared that the designer did not infringe on any of Adidas' trademarks and was therefore not liable for damages or profits made selling products with four stripes.

Maybe Adidas may have done the same with BLM, asking the foundation to alter the three stripes, rather than aggressively going against it and then backtrack almost immediately.

Yet, Adidas' modus operandi has often been sueing rather than discussing: during the Thom Browne trial it was heard that Adidas filed more than 90 lawsuits and signed more than 200 settlement agreements related to the three-stripe trademark since 2008 (the company filed suit against Ralph Lauren in 2014, Marc Jacobs in 2015, Forever 21 in 2017, Puma in 2017 and J.Crew in 2019, just to mention a few), something that proves not just that Adidas is ready to fiercely protect its stripes but that its obsession is getting out of hand and may be alienating consumers.

As noted in previous posts, stripes, a pattern used since the Middle Ages, as proved by frescoes in Medieval churches, have always been a pattern of contention: stripes led indeed to some complex trademark infringement cases in the last few years between different brands such as Off-White, Paige and Helly Hansen.

Who knows, maybe, as the pattern is very fashionable for the next season, we will see Adidas' legal team avidly counting stripes and possibly attempting to sue other brands. But maybe it would be better for them if they stopped their aggressive litigation strategies and took care of the savvy consumers they may be alienating.

Surviving Global Debt Through Art: "The Accursed Share" @ The Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh

In "The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy" (1949) Georges Bataille presents his economic theory. Rather than looking at notions of scarcity, Bataille developed in the essay the concept of excess: in the three volumes of "The Accursed Share" (Consumption, The History of Eroticism, and Sovereignty), the author argues that civilization reveals its order most clearly in the treatment of its surplus energy, that excessive and non-recuperable part of any system that can't be invested but must be expended or it will cause a destructive outpouring, including war.

Bataille's essay provides the title for a group exhibition - featuring nine artists and artists' groups - currently on at Edinburgh's Talbot Rice Gallery. But while Bataille looked at excess, "The Accursed Share" (until 27 May) moves from the theme of debt from a global perspective.

The measure of what people owe is indeed intended here as the fundamental principle of human societies, but the theme is interpreted from different points of views. For example, monetary debt implicitly implies the sovereign figurehead on the banknotes and points therefore at colonisation, enslavement and exploitation of resources.

The exhibition opens with Cian Dayrit's tapestries, made in collaboration with farm-workers, fisherfolk and the indigenous minority in the Philippines, the artist's home. Dayrit is not just an artist, but an activist and a journalist in his practice as he works alongside local communities and develops his projects through interviews and historical sources.

In the Philippines the peasant (magsasaka) sector comprises 75% of the population and Dayrit's works create textile maps showing the historical and contemporary forms of oppression and corruption that damage the lives of the locals. "Tree of Life in the State of Decay and Rebirth" (a collaboration with Henry Caceres), for instance, reproduces a diagram of the feudal systems that continues to shape the Philippines to this day and that is represented as stemming from six roots. The latter include imperialism and capitalism and generate branches such as cheap labour, militarisation and ethnocide.

But there's more to discover in Dayrit's works, including systems of debts and dependency that oppress farmers, while a few landowning families retain the majority of ownership.

On ancient maps, cartographers drew sea monsters to enchant viewers while educating them or to imply that they didn't know what was out there; on these maps symbolical monsters include governments, ruling elite families and multinational corporations that exploit resources. Rather than talking about cartography in the case of Dayrit's practice, we can talk about textile counter-cartography, a new medium that doesn't only chart territories, but explores them while subverting power structures.

Dayrit's "Valley of Dispossession" (2021), for example, is a large textile map embroidered with geological features and provincial boundaries but its legend invites to consider the various abuses of land and people, so symbols like gold talismans embossed with bullets or burning indigenous stilt houses indicate military presence, while gold talismans embossed with tree stumps or sombreros indicate aggressive development projects or large landholdings.

Natural resources are also explored in Sammy Baloji's Untitled (2018/2023): the found copper mortar-shell casings decorated by First World War soldiers (after the conflict they became desirable interior design objects) are displayed in the gallery with potted plants from the Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Millions of Africans died in this area under the regime of King Leopold II of Belgium and, for Baloji, copper from the Katanga region is a symbol, standing for the people forced into labour in the mines and in the extraction industry.

Baloji recycled the mortar-shell casings, but Croatian artist Hana Miletić explores the themes of care and repair instead as forms of labour in the world. Her "Materials" series comprises textile reproductions of impromptu bandage-like mending done to a variety of objects, such as car headlights or patched windows. The shapes of the work look abstract, but they actually represent photographs of makeshift repairs that Miletić takes in urban spaces.

In the artist's practice the concept of debt is considered as the debt we owe to mothers (weaving being a tradition in Miletić's family) and to those who hand down techniques and allow them to circulate (the artist often created textile installations in collaboration with groups of women of diverse social and cultural origin).

The concept of circulation is behind Moyra Davey's series "Copperheads" (1990 - ongoing): the artist photographed the Lincoln Cent, minted since 1909, using a macro lens to create large, detailed colour prints. The images reveal the dirt and scars on the coins, juxtaposing worthlessness and value, simple metal and state power, while her system of folding and posting the work to exhibiting galleries leaves other traces of circulation and material reality.
  
Money is also the main inspiration behind Hanna von Goeler and Lubaina Himid's works. Von Goeler paints on defunct banknotes: her "Migration" series focuses on birds, representing nature traversing human territories, but also its vulnerability. At the same time, and especially when the artist employs for example a Syrian bird on Greek currency to hint at the refugee crisis, the birds turn into symbols and metaphors.

In Lubaina Himid's "Naming the Money", the theme is not used as the main medium of her work: the latter consists in a series of hand-painted, cut-out figures in brightly coloured costumes.

They represent the enslaved Africans depicted in history paintings of the European Royal Courts in conversation with each other. From anonymous signifiers of wealth, Himid gives them the dignity of individuality, adding on the back of the figures their own name and the name given them by their owners to remind us about their false westernised identities. In this way the artist makes a comment about the sense of belonging and people ripped from one life into another (a key theme in our times as well with the continuous flows of migrants arriving in Europe every day who at times are deported back to the countries they ran away from). 

Considering the current global debt, the cost of living crisis and unaddressed colonialism, "The Accursed Share" reveals itself as a compact yet poignant exhibition that helps us investigating the theme of debt and exploring how artists and communities can analyse it, rebel against it and challenge it.

Repair, Remodel & Rewear: "Thirsty for Fashion" @ Killerton House, Exeter, UK

Repair, remodel and rewear, these are the keywords behind "Thirsty for Fashion", an exhibition currently on at Killerton House, Exeter, UK.

Organised by the National Trust, the purpose of this event (on until 5th November) is to encourage visitors to think about our collective habits of buying fast fashion clothes and discarding them carelessly.

All the items included in the event (over 50 from the National Trust's fashion collection that boasts more than 20,000 items of historical clothing and accessories) have indeed one thing in common - they were at some point remodeled or repaired to be preserved for generations or passed down from mothers to daughters.

Shelley Tobin, National Trust Costume Curator at Killerton comments in a press release, "Recycling and reusing clothing is not a new idea, but something that has been commonplace throughout history. This exhibition asks the question - can we learn lessons from these past practices and reapply forgotten skills to looking after our clothes and make them more sustainable? The items exhibited show that we only need look to history to discover ways to ensure that the clothing we buy, make and wear is durable, ethical and avoids waste."

Waste is actually the first theme visitors are confronted with when visiting the exhibition, as T-shirts printed with facts about our collective consumption habits open the event. One of them reminds visitors that 70-100% of microplastics in deep sea sediment come from textile fibres; another that 300,000 tonnes of clothing ends in landfills every year in the UK.

The shocking statements are counterbalanced by a garment that prove that things can be done differently: a long-sleeved silk waistcoat from the late 1600s that was readapted throughout the centuries.

First the pocket flaps were removed and more fashionable vertical pockets were added; later on, the garment was transformed into a fancy-dress costume.

A dress from 1870 is instead the first example of transformative fashion: its skirt could be matched with a modest long-sleeved bodice for the day (View this photo) or a more sensual one for the evening (View this photo).

There are several repurposed silk gowns from the 18th and 19th century and examples of children's dresses (some of them feature exquisite details such as embroideries, smocking and pin-tucking) made from recycled fabrics from adult's gowns such as a child's party dress about 1930-40, remodelled from a silk gown from 1890.

But there's more to discover in between patched and mended leather stays from 1740-60, a darning sampler from the 1800s, two patchwork quilts made from recycled fabrics and a sumptuous silk wedding gown from 1840 remodelled to rewear in the 1940s.

Other ingenious examples include nylon parachute designs like an embroidered nightdress made during the Second World War when clothing and material were rationed, and a rather minimalist yet elegant dressing gown made in the late '40s by an Exeter woman with a surplus army blanket and sections of repurposed green woolen cloth (used for the trim and the belt).

On show at the exhibition there are also vintage films from the 1940s and '50s with advice on the "make do and mend" campaign and photographs of National Trust staff.

The National Trust volunteers at Killerton were involved in the event and shared their thoughts on personal recycled items, from a father's 1970s woolen Guernsey jumper to a mother's wedding dress passed onto her daughter.

In the last section of "Thirsty for Fashion", historical pieces are juxtaposed to modern ones by six contemporary designers and makers refashioning surplus stock to produce new clothing with no waste going to landfill. Among the designs featured there are also creations made with old denim by ELV Denim and Flora Colingwood-Norris's jumpers with colourful visible mending.

These designs prove that, while environmental concerns and the cost of living crisis, may be the main reasons behind a collective interest in recycling and remodelling clothes, some solutions are refreshing and fun and do not just extend the life of a garment, but push us to reimagine what we already own, adding unexpected twists to our everyday clothes.

Creative Ideas for Fashion & Textile Recycling to Reduce Waste & Make a Difference

In yesterday's post we mentioned the Index Award biennale (launched by the Danish nonprofit organisation The Index Project). For today let's continue looking at some of the nominees for this year, taking into considerations projects focused on recycling materials or reducing waste.

Some of them, such as Kvadrat's Really Textile Tabletop™, regard the production of new textiles. The Really Textile Tabletop™ consists in a low impact, circular textile waste product designed for conscious office interiors. Kvadrat mentions on its site a research by BBC News estimating that 92 million tonnes of textiles waste are created each year and the equivalent to a rubbish truck full of clothes ends up in landfill every second.

Moving from this data, the company looked at the possibility of creating a tabletop entirely based on waste that instead of wood and wood composites, employs upcycled textiles and but no water, chemicals or dyes (besides, the binder used in the product is 20% second generation BICO plastic from waste streams and 10% bio-binder from waste feed-stock). In this way the manufacturer reduces Co2 emission from an average 50Co2Kg conventional tabletop to 12Co2Kg for a Textile Tabletop™.

Textile-wise among the award nominees this year there’s also BFlex®, a stretch yarn developed by Italian Giovanni Benelli/ BFlex®, in collaboration with Danish textile design Studio MLR.

Most garments, including basic T-shirts and jeans, incorporate elastic materials as stretch is essential for longevity. Yet, while this fuel-based fiber guarantees comfort, when a garment containing elastic fibers is to be recycled at end-of-life, a problem arises as the material must be split to cellulosic and fuel-based parts to get pure raw materials.

This implies an expensive process which is the main reason why very little of these products are recycled back to pure raw materials. BFlex® eliminates the problem since it is a stretch yarn made of only one fiber, a mono-material without adding any fuel-based elements.

Recycling can also be interpreted as a fun fashion game, Ukrainian designers Natasha Fistchenko and Masha Timoshenko tell us. To this aim they created CNSTR, a modular "clothing constructor system" consisting of broken parts of garments made from recycled materials that can be assembled, disassembled and reassembled together to form a variety of designs thanks to a series of zippers integrated in strategic places.

Wearers can therefore create multi-functional clothes made from recycled materials and in a universal size. By being able to vary sections of the garments, wearers take part in the creative process, coming up with dresses, jackets and jumpsuits characterized by flexibility and adaptability.

For fashion fans who like to add an arty twist to their wardrobes, there's The Trench Factory (TFF).

TTF sources second hand coats and then gives them to selected artists who create painted or embroidered interventions on the coats. The items are then numbered and sold with the artist's name on the label. In this way the garments are given a higher value as they are turned into unique arty pieces and the lifecycle of each design is extended.

Among the accessory offers, instead, there are the BackToMarket® Earthy sneakers by "CCILU" (CHEE-loo) made from multiple agriculture and aquaculture material and wastes.

 
 
The shoe vamp material is made with Sorona® fabric, derived from corn glucose, which is two times anti-UV, anti-Chlorine, and more resilient than conventional sneaker fabric. The Sorona® upper reduces the petroleum-based fabric by 38% and the carbon emission by 63%.

The upper lining is made instead with SeaWool®, a material combining upcycled oyster shell wastes and plastic bottles, and the soles with bamboo and tea stalks wastes as a substitution material for petroleum-based materials.

When it comes to fashion products there's also the packaging to consider, and among the projects submitted for the Index Award there is a PET Pleated Bag that recycles transparent PET bottles. 

The global annual number of discarded PET bottles exceeds 500 billion, but only 7% of the total amount is recyclable. To make the PET Pleated bag, bottles are recycled, crushed into white filaments, spun into yarn, and woven into a fabric that is then pleated to create a multi-layered texture. No dyes are added in the process and the resulting bags are more flexible than fabric, yet very sturdy which makes them perfect for everyday uses such as shopping.

E-commerce has made it easier to buy the products we want or need online, but it has certainly increased the use of packaging materials that end up in landfills as recycling alone is not enough to reduce environmental impact of waste generated by e-commerce companies, that also end up spending a lot of money on single-use packaging.

RE-ZIP is instead designed to meet the growing demand for sustainable and circular packaging: customers can return the RE-ZIP package through parcel shops, lockers, mailboxes and other Drop Points via the RE-ZIP app to the RE-ZIP Hub. Here they are cleaned and sent to webshops that in this way save up to 100% on packaging costs by reusing the same materials multiple times.

There are more projects to discover on The Index Award page and, if you have your own project or design to improve lives (or want to nominate someone's project), you can do it at this link (deadline: 31st March).

Designs to Improve Lives: When Medicine, Science & Technology Take Fashion to a New Level

Around three years ago as the Coronavirus pandemic relentlessly spread all over the world at an alarming speed, quite a few international fashion companies, brands and designers based in different countries offered their help manufacturing in their facilities or ateliers face masks and PPE. At the time, we all genuinely thought that something would have changed in the industry, from the fast fashion rhythms that characterise it to shows and presentations. Some things did change, actually, as, for an extended period of time, everything moved onto digital platforms, but, soon, the industry went back to its pre-pandemic habits.

But what if, rather than the umpteenth beauty line or capsule collection, some houses started using their money to fund and develop medical or scientific projects that could definitely improve people's lives (surely the most powerful groups have money to invest in other things rather than just in the next brand ambassador sitting in the front row)? Or what if some brands sponsored exhibitions (including small and compact ones) about smart textiles and wearables (10-12 years ago such events were trending...) to introduce products that could really improve people's lives?

Medicine, science and technology can offer immense inspirations and news on scientific magazines provide us with intriguing starting points for such products.

For example, the journal Science Advances recently published a study about a smart patch for chronic non-healing wounds. One of the major and rapidly growing clinical complications all over the world, chronic wound healing (think diabetic ulcers, burns and non-healing surgical wounds) is a highly complex biological process. The smart bandage of the study consists in a disposable patch with biosensors, electrodes, and drug-loaded hydrogels and a reusable wearable and stretchable, wireless, bioelectronic system. The latter monitors the wound taking into consideration parameters such as temperature and pH to check if the wound is infected and its levels of inflammation. The device allows for electrical stimulation to be applied, a technique previously found to encourage wounds to heal (that went undeveloped because it was hampered by bulky equipment). The data acquired are then sent to a user interface (computer or smartphone).

The smart patch was tested on diabetic mice, but further studies will have to be carried out, also considering the fact that chronic wounds show great variability in size and in the amount of fluid they produce.

While a smart bandage for chronic wounds may sound like a strictly medical or scientific discovery, product and fashion designers could work alongside medical experts and look into alternative fibers and materials that may help scientists developing more comfortable versions of such products, so there is always a design aspect even in the most technical devices. 

Researchers who may have developed innovative ideas can enter them into the Index Award biennale. Launched by the Danish nonprofit organisation The Index Project, the award promotes the improvement of life worldwide, both in developed and developing countries through solutions that go from wearable devices to keep oneself physically and mentally healthy to the creation of safer spaces.

Among the entries this year there is a neural sleeve for people with multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy that allows a patient to walk more freely through electrical stimulation, and a wearable textile computer (this is something very important as embedded logic controllers made of textiles are actually an entire new field to explore, as they can lead to smart, fully textile-based robotic wearables) capable of pneumatic digital logic, onboard memory, and user interaction to assist people with disabilities. 

Among the nominees for this year there is also a biofilm band-aid harnessing sweat and converting evaporation into energy to power wearable devices; a foundation formula that creates a film protecting the skin from acid attacks (nobody should ever experience such a thing, but a foundation resistant to such attacks may have other applications as well) and a recyclable translucent PLA brace for adolescents with scoliosis covered in visually enticing fabric-like patterns, that turns a medical device into a fashion statement giving confidence to those who have to wear such a device.

None of us expects to see branded bandages or wearables with prominent logos of famous fashion houses, but the medical and scientific field could offer fashion, and in particular young people entering the industry, the chance to apply their potential to different areas, developing solutions that could genuinely bring positive changes to the lives of people with a variety of ailments.

The Woven Permanence of Instant Selfies: Cindy Sherman's Tapestries @ ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark

In the last decade taking selfies turned into a dangerous collective obsession: selfies offer many of us the chance to instantly post visual chronicles of every single (un)meaningful instant and fleeting moment happening in our lives, but they also give perennial nightmares to all those among us who hate having their picture taken. Posted on social media or simply forgotten in the recesses of an abandoned smartphone or micro memory card, our selfies remain confined to the intangible digital realm.

Pondering about selfies and the phenomenon of face altering apps, in 2017 renowned artist Cindy Sherman started posting a series of selfies on her Instagram account. The portraits were created using various face-altering platforms available for smartphones that deconstructed and reassembled the image of the artist, creating new grotesques and imaginary personae.

Sherman is known for her photographic series exploring the notion of identity and challenging it: for decades the artist has transformed herself through a variety of ingenious disguises such as costumes and silicone masks. From film star to clown, from housewife to fashion icon, Sherman analysed through her gender fluid images and the typology of faces and figures she explored, the role of women in multiple situations.

Portrait after portrait, Sherman created ambiguous identities, like a clever shape-shifter, remaining always in control of her body, and playing the double role of subject and object.

Yet her selfies were too small in format to be reproduced and upscaled in a high-quality image photography, so, rather than confining them to social media or digital supports, Sherman decided to give them a sort of unexpected physicality and elevate them through a traditional craft, transforming them into tapestries.

Currently on display at ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum in Denmark (until 5th June), the tapestries are a way to turn technology into crafts.

There's usually parody, irony and theatricality in her works, but her tapestries take the digital media to a new level as they were created by master artisans in Belgium where tapestry-making has been a highly valued practice since the 15th century.

Translating pixels into stitches actually worked pretty well in this case: from afar the portraits look almost painted, but close up the dense woven patterns are revealed. The cotton, wool and acrylic yarns give the selfies new depths, besides, while we enjoy selfies visually, the tufted effect adds a new tactile value to the original digital format, engaging another sense, the touch, which usually gets neglected when we talk about digital art. 

The tapestry medium ends up emphasizing the alterations of Sherman's appearances: aged, sporting a beard, with her arms or neck distorted or morphed into a strange creature with lilac skin and hair, Sherman proves that her characters can't be confined to the image, but can be translated into other mediums.

For Sherman the selfie is another mask, another way to perform her roles, and the medium of the tapestry is just one interpretation of her multiple identities, assumed and genuine, fake and real.

By transforming new, artificial, temporary, ephemeral and imaginary bodies into permanent ones made of yarns through the tapestries, Sherman turns something familiar, ephemeral and superficial yet usually fun as a selfie into something disturbing, disquieting, kitsch, grotesque and even uncomfortable. 

Tapestry, a medium used in previous centuries for decorative panels, artworks and portraits made for nobility and the wealthy, turns in this case into a vehicle to comment on modern personality consumption on digital platforms.

"People might think the use of tapestry is quaint and outmoded," states the curator of the exhibition at ARoS, Juliana Engberg. "But Sherman mines her material for maximum effect, exploring not only identity but also playing with the visual field of abstraction and realism. With tapestry, she has found a material that warps and weaves in partnership with the pixel, and it is exciting to be able to work with and think about these unexpected works. They reveal more and more with looking and thinking," she concludes.

Image credits for this post

Installation photos of Cindy Sherman's Tapestries at ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, 2023, courtesy of ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark.

Fashion Sense(s): From Cinzia Ruggeri A/W 1986 to Yohei Ohno A/W 23

Printed, embroidered or appliqued motifs inspired by the five senses are not so rare in fashion. Decades after decade, eyes and lips, for example, have often been employed in symbolic ways on both garments and accessories.

In the mid-'80s artist, fashion and interior designer Cinzia Ruggeri explored the possibilities of the five senses through garments with lips, noses and eyes.

Some of the designs featured printed and hand-painted elements to stimulate also the touch; others were characterised by prints of eyes, noses and ears that looked slightly surreal, almost evoking the palette and style of Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory" (eyes complete with eyelashes also appeared on Ruggeri's pumps - View this photo, third pair from the left, but the way they were displayed at an exhibition in Rome last year, without being cleaned or restored, didn't make them justice, you can see the shoes in this video).

The tribute to the senses was also the main theme behind the video for Ruggeri's A/W 1986-87 collection that included garments that smelled like sulphur, edible earrings and models carrying hand-painted canvas panels of an eye, lips and ear.

This emphasis on the senses recently reappeared in Yohei Ohno's A/W 23 designs. Showcased during Tokyo Fashion Week, the collection mainly revolved around sight and touch.

The former was interpreted as large brooches of an eye used to accessorize jackets and dresses. These decorative elements looked broken and fractured, almost like the fragmented canvases carried by models on Ruggeri's runway.

One dress was instead matched with an oversized tufted cape with a pair of eyes: this piece represented a connection with interior design since it was made with a technique mainly employed to make carpets.

Ohno is actually an interior design fan, so this wasn't the only reference to this discipline: during the collection presentation in a gallery in Shibuya, he got some models posing behind a carpet with an elaborate frame and a pair of cut out legs reminiscent of a statue that could actually be positioned vertically, creating an optically uncanny effect.

Besides, for this collection Ohno also moved from Cassina's Dudet chair designed by Patricia Urquiola (View this photo) and borrowed its distinctive curved silhouette to create padded tubing on mini-skirts in tough cotton that pointed at military wear and on sheepskin heeled pumps designed by Ikue Enomoto.

In this way Ohno established a futuristic and industrial link with interior design that was also an invitation to the touch, as the tubings formed an innovative silhouette, but represented also a soft and comforting motif.

Ohno often adds an eccentric note to his creations and even the designs in this collection that verged towards the casual/street/urban moods and featured graphic prints, were characterised by this approach.

Since he doesn't like T-shirts, for example, he transformed them into handbags, and created a purple print of a fake band's tour poster that was used for bags, turtlenecks and dresses.

In previous collections (A/W 2017-18) Ohno referenced the Bauhaus movement, the automotive industry and furniture design by architect Eileen Gray.

But there is always a marked femininity in all his collections even when Ohno leans more onto the industrial side of things: in previous seasons he printed aeronautical engineering plans onto soft quilted dresses, integrated seat-belt straps in designs that put emphasis on the waistline, and turned industrial aprons into sensual dresses. Ohno also applied dinosaur skeleton tails on elegant flat sandals (View this photo) or decorated tops and skirts with three-dimensional rows of dinosaur horns made with organza (View this photo), playing with contrasts and juxtaposing the brutish nature of prehistoric animals with a vision of a modern, dynamic and ironic woman.

In this collection Ohno continued with this juxtaposition, using light organza for his trousers with a round motif around the calf, vaguely reminiscent of Pierre Cardin's 1970 circle pants (that were originally available in white View this photo or in a selection of bright colours View this photo including orange, an interesting parallelism with Ohno's, that come in the same white/orange palette), and creating kinetic cuffs that coiled around the models' arms, looking like crossovers between an accessory borrowed from a sci-fi film and an orthopaedic brace.

It is exactly in these juxtapositions and contrasts of wearable garments and accessories reinvented from industrial products and with a quirky twist about them, that Ohno excels at.