Eleanor Scott’s Transpose design is a triptych, based on the story of the dancing plague of 1518 in Strasbourg.
Eleanor first rendered her designs in Stitch Designer, carefully creating a composition and selecting a palette to most effectively communicates the historic links and narrative. Below are video samplings of the design software, highlighting the intricacy of the programming and design. Following this, Eleanor sent the files to our printer, who spent time preparing the files for screens. This included editing and colour separating the imagery to produce transparencies to screen print the six-colour triptych.
“The most likely explanation is that the dancing plague was caused by mass hysteria, due to the awful living conditions of the time. The clergymen were renowned for their mistreatment of the community they were meant to protect: not only were they taking food from the poor, but they were taxing them into complete poverty under the guise of entrance to heaven. The clergymen are depicted throughout with vast tables of food and drink, and are placed below the dancers as they were the real root of the problem.”
“Praying to St Vitus did not help, and hundreds of people manically joined into the dancing plague. Supposedly many died from exhaustion, but it is unclear how many and there is no evidence of death within archived city of Strasbourg documents.”
“I went about designing this piece in the same way I do all of my work — programming it on my knit design software. At first, I thought I would hand draw it, but it turns out I have become way to reliant on the constraints that my software upholds to me.
I did lots of visual research on clergymen dress, along with a lot of literary and historical research on the plague. This meant I could use my imagination to create characters and compositions.
I made all the components in separate files, and then arranged them digitally into compositions reminiscent of the tapestries I typically make. It was great to be able to use my integrated digital practise in a new way.”
”It started with Frau Troffea (depicted in the middle of the completed triptych, raising her arms at St Vitus) dancing manically in the centre. Slowly, more and more people joined her. The locals were very superstitious at the time, so they believed the dancing plague was a punishment from above, and that St Vitus could save them if they prayed to him.”
“St. Vitus was the 13-year-old son of a pagan Sicilian senator and was converted to Christianity before ultimately being martyred. He is depicted in a cauldron of fire, as he met his martyrdom by being boiled alive in oil which supposedly made him hop around like a dance! this is how he came to be the patron saint of nervous disorders and dancing. He is depicted in the most powerful position ( the centre top) and appears to be puppeteer. “
Eleanor Scott is a constructed textiles designer who has a diverse background in both fashion and textiles design. After completing a Constructed Textiles BA Hons at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design she launched the knitwear label Nor Clothing, which saw success in the global womenswear market and used innovative zero waste production techniques.
Through the creation of sustainable knitwear garments, she began to develop new knit technologies and now carries on this mode of enquiry as a Doctoral Researcher for the Business of Fashion Textiles and Technology (BFTT) at Loughborough University.
Eleanor’s creative practise plays on the difficult role digital technologies play within crafts-based industries, and how these might become more accepted. To do this she uses imagery mostly depicted within historical and medieval art and creates digital files to materialise on her knit machinery. Her latest design work is routed in the ‘hacking’ of knit technology to create playful tapestries and textiles art, inspired by medieval manuscripts, masterworks, and folklore.