Facing Touch

Lia CookWW-2011-132151

2011·Cotton and rayon, weaving on digital hand loom·137.2 × 130.2 cm (54 × 51 1/4 in.)

Lia Cook has long been interested in how the human brain reacts to the desire for touch. In the early 2000s, she began to work with neuroscientists to compare the brain’s response to viewing a woven image of a face versus a photograph of the same face. They discovered that seeing the woven image triggered greater activity in the part of the brain most affected by touch. Facing Touch illustrates this experiment: in it, a girl wearing a cap with sensors attached reaches out to a woven portrait also by Cook, Binary Traces: Young Girl, from 2004.

Catalogue

Year: 2011
Medium: Cotton and rayon, weaving on digital hand loom
Dimensions: 137.2 × 130.2 cm (54 × 51 1/4 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Lia Cook

Artist

Lia Cook

Textile

Lia Cook is an American fiber artist and weaver known for large-scale tapestries that integrate photographic imagery with traditional weaving techniques. Working primarily in cotton and silk on jacquard looms, she creates intricate works that explore the intersection of digital technology and handcraft, often incorporating faces and figurative forms rendered through thousands of individual threads. Her practice bridges conceptual photography and textile art, generating works of monumental scale that challenge the conventional boundaries between craft and fine art.

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