Digital communication and modern life were the subjects of Jean Shin’s FWM project, TEXTile. Shin developed an interactive “fabric” using thousands of computer keyboard keys embedded in a continuous textile measuring approximately twenty-five feet long by forty-six inches wide. The embedded keys spell out the email correspondence between Shin and FWM’s studio staff. An armature supports the key-embedded cloth, holding the front of the cloth in a desk-like position. The first three rows of embedded keys were wired to operate as a working computer keyboard. FWM created these “active” keys in collaboration with Moey Inc., an interactive research and development company known for creating innovative and dynamic technology-based exhibits. Viewers participated in the installation by typing on the “active keys” at the beginning of the cloth. TEXTile projected their text instantaneously onto the upright end of the cloth in a font that mimicked the appearance of computer keys. Thus the viewer’s text became a virtual continuation of the key-embedded cloth, providing a seamless progression from the actual to the virtual keyed cloth.
During her residency at FWM, Shin also developed two other works. Key Promises was an installation consisting of hundreds of deconstructed computer command keys that Shin placed on the wall at eye level in a continuous line that wrapped around the gallery. The keys formed a concrete poem, metaphorically following the viewer’s path through space from the entrance to the exit: “pause/break” to “Space” to “Return” and “Home.”
Duet was a two-channel video installation in which two keyboards appeared to play a duet of virtual correspondence to the rhythm of fingers tapping on a keyboard. The keys were played like the keys on a player piano, endlessly rising and falling in a video loop.
