Rush Hour 2 is part of a series “Traces of Light,” a collaboration with her filmmaker/director husband, Bo Hovgaard that captures big cities at night. Hovgaard’s video camera is unfocused as he captures the light in Shanghai from driving cars and advertising signs. Sorensen selects individual images from the video and translates photographic pixels into threads, video recordings into weavings.
Grethe Sørensen gained her technical proficiency through years of hand weaving. Working from the idea that there is a similarity between pixelated images and the graphic expression for a weave construction, she began to focus on digital technology and became inspired by the unparalleled control of computer-aided looms. “As in four-color printing, where all the shades are created by mixing four colors on white paper, the shades in my woven motifs are created by mixing threads of the basic colors red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow, black and white. This technique gives the possibility of making smooth color gradations and an almost photorealistic reproduction of the image.”
In 2010 Sorensen wove a small sample of Rush Hour 2/Shanghai on her jacquard loom, and then produced this large work on a digital jacquard loom at TextielLab in Tilburg, The Netherlands. TextielLab has state-of-the art textile machinery and regularly collaborates with international artists on public and private commissions.
Rush Hour 2: Shanghai will be on view in the exhibition Making Design beginning December 12, 2014.