Lisa Giles, Melissa Silk

Biography

Dr. Melissa Silk, co-director with Annette Mauer in STEAMpop, is passionate about exploring connections between imagination, making and mathematics. Lisa Giles is a Sydney based paper artist and STEAMpop’s creative partner. Together, we are fascinated with how the material world reflects geometry through the experience of making sculptural forms. “​It’s Amoiré” is a look comprised of curved origami forms (hat, collar, bangle) made from watercolour and tracing paper with embedded moiré patterns. The dress is a loose fitting paper garment digitally printed with moiré patterns. In his book The Seduction of Curves Allan McRobie tells us that curves have an attractiveness and appeal that straight lines cannot invoke. The proposition and implications of such human responses propelled us to develop this piece. We used digital fabrication techniques combined with the application of self-created moiré patterns. Our intention was always to incite an aesthetic moment reminiscent of McRobie’s seductive invitation to respond to curves on a deeply instinctual level. The underlying geometry of the hat design is based on a circle and a series of curves including elliptical curves. While these curves are not exactly logarithmic they are intentionally spaced to move outward from fixed points. The bangle and collar are examples of curved folding techniques inspired by the works of Professor Jun Mitani. They are derived from circular crease patterns situated within either a circle or square. Moiré patterns appear when two or more repetitive structures (such as screens, grids or gratings) are superposed or viewed against each other. The term occurs frequently in the world of textiles where the overlaying of different weaves leads to shimmering, larger scale patterns of strips that swirl as the wearer moves. Regarded as chaotic interference patterns, here we have ‘fixed’ them in paper.

Looks

About the look

It's Amoiré

Paper

2022 - 2025 (Version 2)

“​It’s Amoiré” is a look consisting of curved origami forms (hat, collar, bangle) made from watercolour and tracing paper with embedded moiré patterns. The dress is a loose fitting paper garment digitally printed with moiré patterns. The uniqueness of the work is that it is made from paper and includes mathematical relationships both in form and surface treatment. In his book The Seduction of Curves Allan McRobie tells us that curves have an attractiveness and appeal that straight lines cannot invoke. The proposition and implications of such human responses propelled us to develop this piece. We used digital fabrication techniques combined with the application of self-created moiré patterns. Our intention was always to incite an aesthetic moment reminiscent of McRobie’s seductive invitation to respond to curves on a deeply instinctual level. The underlying geometry of the hat design is based on a circle and a series of curves including elliptical curves. While these curves are not exactly logarithmic they are intentionally spaced to move outward from fixed points. The bangle and collar are examples of curved folding techniques inspired by the works of Professor Jun Mitani. They are derived from circular crease patterns situated within either a circle or square. We created our own moiré patterns for the digital print using vector graphics software. Moiré patterns appeared when we layered two sets of curved patterns and experimented with rotation to achieve the desired visual interference effect. Large format printing was used to create single pieces for the front and back of the garment and for components of the hat.