Emily Hermant | UK

http://theliesproject.org

The Lies Project is based on original installation work. In these installations, anonymous participants, sheltered only by a transparent veil printed with lies, would enter a series of \"lying booths\" to submit their own hand-written lies. After being collected, the submitted lies were embroidered and treated using chemical processes so that the fabric holding the stitch dissolved and only the stitch--the lie itself--remained. In the second phase of the installation, hundreds of embroidered lies were pinned, in single file, just off the walls of a gallery. The mounted lies were then lit from behind and above, creating a prominent shadow behind the embroidery of each lie. One of the questions that the work raised is \"What is present in this shadow?\" Other questions, centered around the ideas of weaving and the stitch as silent records of traditionally feminine practices, also emerged. The Lies Project can be seen as a \"virtual\" continuation of the act of lying.
The Lies Project is an interactive web-site where viewers are invited to enter a \"virtual\" lying booth and submit their lies. Participants\' submissions continually generate woven networks of lies that in turn produce and sustain a virtual community. In addition, the website intervenes in the user\'s lying process by altering the content and quality of the lies. Furthermore, the website occasionally poses questions to the user in order to break anonymity and prompt an interest in accountability. The Lies Project allows participants to explore lying as both currency and tool in the transactions and construction of our everyday culture.
The Lies Project may be presented in one or two parts: the first is the on-line component--simply the URL. The second is the physical \"lying booth\" which the viewer may enter to access the website. The booth is comprised of a silk-screened transparent veil printed with lies, that surrounds a computer. The veil is to be basted (sewn) onto a circular shape from which it hands approximately 3ft. above the computer. The computer is to be seated on a plinth (or equivalent support) approximately 3-4 ft. high and wide enough to seat an available computer. Approximately 1.5-2 hours is required for installation time. Please contact me for further details.

Born in Toronto, Canada in 1980, Emily Hermant is a textile and installation artist, with recent pursuits in the cyber-arts. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Distinction in Studio Arts [Concentration: Fibres] and Religion, from Concordia University. Hermant\'s current work investigates ways of integrating traditional notions of craft and textile production with the quickly evolving fields of digital technologies and new medias. She is particularly interested in how techniques such as embroidery, silkscreening, and weaving find their parallels in the languages and practices of virtual space. Hermant\'s recent activity include a thematic residency for the Art\'s Birthday Festival 2005 at Studio XX, in Montréal, where she was a contributor to Reverie: NoiseCity, a virtual landscape on the web organized by the Western Front Society and aaeol in Vancouver. Her work has been featured on the YearZeroOne Gallery Splash Page, as well as on [NewMediaArtprojectNetwork], an experiemental platform for art and new media, operating from Cologne, Germany. Hermant was most recently featured in the 07e HTMlles Cyberarts Festival, run by Studio XX, in Montréal, Canada. Hermant lives and works in Montréal.