How Textile Communicates

Textile has been used as a medium of communication since the prehistoric period. Up until the 19th century, civilizations throughout the world manipulated thread and fabric to communicate in a way that would astound many of us now. Unlike text and images, textile is haptic and three-dimensional. Its meaning is unfixed, constantly shifting as it circulates between different owners and creators. In How Textile Communicates, Ganaele Langlois dissects textile's unique capacity for communication through a range of global case studies, before examining the profound impact of colonialism on textile practice and the appropriation of this medium by capitalist systems. A thought-provoking contribution to the fields of both fashion and communication studies, Langlois' writing challenges readers' preconceptions and shines new light on the profound impact of textiles on human communication.

Ganaele Langlois is Assistant Professor in Communication Studies at York University, Canada, and Associate Director of the Infoscape Centre for the Study of Social Media. Her research focuses on new media theory, software studies and technoculture.

Introduction: Textile as Communication
Winding Back
Textile as a Medium
Textile Making as Mediating
Textile Making and Power
Decolonizing Media and Communication
Book Overview

Part 1: Communicative Power
1. Unraveling Textile from Commodity to Communication
A Plural Medium
Textile as Communication Medium: Historical Pointers
Two Common Understandings of Communication through Textile: as Representation and Information
Towards a Third Aspect: textile as binding worlds through space and time
Global Textile, or Communication as Expressive Power
Textile, a Medium of Struggle
2. Quechua Textility
Pre-Columbian Textiles: Media and Power
Indigenous Identities in Contemporary Peru
The Revival of Quechua Textiles
Confronting Appropriation
Part 2: Technology and Imagination
3. Jacquard and the Creativity of Extensions
The Jacquard Mechanism, Automation and Digital Media
Weaving Digital Images
Weaving as Extension
4. Communicating Across the Abyss
Of the Meanings, Symbols and Patterns in Diasporic Textile
Mathematics, Rhythms and Signs
The Values of Making
Part 3: Transformative Entanglements
5. Reweaving the Interface
Domestic Textiles and Power
Marking Subjects
Reading through the Lines: The Evanescent Maker
Portable Technologies of Making
"Where Am I going?": Creative Meandering
6. Kené, or the Promise of Unknowing
Shipibo-Conibo Textiles and Perspectival Anthropology
Kené in the Global Market
Delineating the Space of Unknowing and Potentials
Back to the Basics
Part 4: Cosmomedia
7. Cosmomedia - the Tale of Two Indigos
Cosmotechnics and Ecosophical Media
Combinations and Recombinations: Indigo dyeing and the making of worlds
Colonizing Indigo
Indigo and Collectives of Humans and Non-Humans
Japanese Indigo and Natural Dyes as Cosmomedia
Conclusion: The Shape of Things to Come