Raina Wellman


 





Endless Vacation Phenomenon
A project made in colloboration with Sara Park.



“EVP” exploring dancing, raving, group dynamics, visions, delusions, fungus, community, angel numbers, secret messages, partying, freedom, bodily-ness, and other things too. 


“Separate Threads” explores the multiplicity and hybridity of online identities. On the Internet, it is possible for one person to cultivate many identities, which may or may not be connected to each other, and which may have different degrees of anonymity. In this piece, a hypothetical person, with two separate cyber-identities-- a golfer and a chemtrail conspiracy believer-- accidentally come together in cyberspace.







Separate Threads
A project made in colloboration with machine and Amelia Zhang.





To produce the textual elements of this piece, we scraped text posts from specific forums and ran them through a Markov chain algorithm to generate text that borrows from the words of users on the forum, simulating an average-- yet somewhat garbled-- post. This abstracts away from any individual poster's identity and creates an algorithmic, ephemeral representation of the character's online identity. Each sequence embroidered on the garments was created by the Markov chain produced using the corpus that relates to the garment’s theme. A longer version of this Markov chain is projected over the models and garments.









Chair Growth
Upholstery office fabric 











Knit Forms 
Exhibited in “Windows on the Future” a Vital Spaces and Paseo Project. 









Fabric Samples / Surface Design