Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Modern Medieval

Ever since I started studying the medieval period I thought that it was more modern than most people assume. Every image (almost every image) I saw in the lecture I could think of at least one modern equivalent. For example, the iconic scene in 'Ring' of the girl climbing out of the TV screen is actually just the reworked image of the Blemmye that is trying to escape from the pages of the 1050's 'Wonders of the East'. (I even managed to compare characters from Little Mermaid with some illuminations in one of my undergrad essays http://www.academia.edu/1545969/Three_Headed_Trinity_in_St_Johns_Psalter_MS_K26 )      


Now, being in the limbo between handing in the dissertation and the viva, I decided I will explore another aspect of the tricky relationship between the modern and the medieval which is the Digital Medieval. So now I am taking a course on Digital Print on Textiles in Saint Martin School of Art, the aim of this is to look into ways how to digitalise and digitally recreate medieval textiles and patterns, but of course there is a chance that I will stray from that path and attempt to turn medieval into a fashion statement.