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C. L. Moreno Biec
1 Introduction
Brené Brown, in her TED talk discussing vulnerability, said that over 10 years of
researching human behaviour, she has found that everybody needs connections, so
much so that feeling connected is a basic human need; connections of belonging,
human connections, and connections with the environment. Good connections are
directly linked to communication, but is it possible to improve them, and find a way
to make them deeper and more meaningful? When we talk about communication
we immediately think about spoken and written languages, but these languages have
limits. Not everybody speaks the same tongue, and even if they did, there are aspects
of human experience that spoken and written languages cannot reach. So what about
unwritten languages? Something that could engage not just our intellect but also our
senses and even more that could make us feel present in the world and interact with
one another beyond boundaries? Looking for different ways of communicating that
can go deeper that can let people interact in a more sensitive way, and we cannot
ignore the importance that textiles have had throughout history in achieving this. This
paper is going to analyse how ancestral communities developed unwritten languages
through textiles and how understanding, engaging with, and preserving the dynamic
they used can help us connect with others in the deepest way. This type of connection
can be considered a new form of luxury, one that is no longer about buying things but
about understanding and reacting to the needs of both people and the environment
in a holistic way.
To understand how people in the past used textiles to create their own worlds,
keep memories alive, develop identities, and make thoughts and cultures last, we
will break down the characteristics of three unwritten ancestral textile languages:
The Andean Khipu system, Bogolanfini Mudcloth from Mali, and Mongolian felt.
These three different cultures can show us how they had to reach a more complex
language when words were deemed insufficient to communicate with others and
understand the world and its complexity.
Recovering these languages and the way of thinking they inspire helps us to reach
a state where we create our own identity beyond the culture around us, and closer to
life experiences, places, and knowledge. In a world, where we often communicate
in a very impersonal way, using technology, and sometimes feel isolated even when
surrounded by people and things, being consciously present in the moment is now so
infrequent that it can be considered one characteristic of the new luxury. Heidegger [6]
said that what makes us human is “being in the world”, which we can do by interacting
not just with one another, but with the environment and the objects around us. Objects
and our connection to them make us present, much as Steiner has described: “To be
human is to be fixed, embedded and immersed in the physical, literal, tangible day to
day world” [10]. Knowing the response of our bodies, senses and minds to different
stimuli lets us understand how we connect with others, the world, and the vast and
complex map of human interactions.
The new luxury is also based on what is happening in our surroundings. The way
to experience it now is through our bodies, using the senses, going to feel, to touch;
C. L. Moreno Biec
1 Introduction
Brené Brown, in her TED talk discussing vulnerability, said that over 10 years of
researching human behaviour, she has found that everybody needs connections, so
much so that feeling connected is a basic human need; connections of belonging,
human connections, and connections with the environment. Good connections are
directly linked to communication, but is it possible to improve them, and find a way
to make them deeper and more meaningful? When we talk about communication
we immediately think about spoken and written languages, but these languages have
limits. Not everybody speaks the same tongue, and even if they did, there are aspects
of human experience that spoken and written languages cannot reach. So what about
unwritten languages? Something that could engage not just our intellect but also our
senses and even more that could make us feel present in the world and interact with
one another beyond boundaries? Looking for different ways of communicating that
can go deeper that can let people interact in a more sensitive way, and we cannot
ignore the importance that textiles have had throughout history in achieving this. This
paper is going to analyse how ancestral communities developed unwritten languages
through textiles and how understanding, engaging with, and preserving the dynamic
they used can help us connect with others in the deepest way. This type of connection
can be considered a new form of luxury, one that is no longer about buying things but
about understanding and reacting to the needs of both people and the environment
in a holistic way.
To understand how people in the past used textiles to create their own worlds,
keep memories alive, develop identities, and make thoughts and cultures last, we
will break down the characteristics of three unwritten ancestral textile languages:
The Andean Khipu system, Bogolanfini Mudcloth from Mali, and Mongolian felt.
These three different cultures can show us how they had to reach a more complex
language when words were deemed insufficient to communicate with others and
understand the world and its complexity.
Recovering these languages and the way of thinking they inspire helps us to reach
a state where we create our own identity beyond the culture around us, and closer to
life experiences, places, and knowledge. In a world, where we often communicate
in a very impersonal way, using technology, and sometimes feel isolated even when
surrounded by people and things, being consciously present in the moment is now so
infrequent that it can be considered one characteristic of the new luxury. Heidegger [6]
said that what makes us human is “being in the world”, which we can do by interacting
not just with one another, but with the environment and the objects around us. Objects
and our connection to them make us present, much as Steiner has described: “To be
human is to be fixed, embedded and immersed in the physical, literal, tangible day to
day world” [10]. Knowing the response of our bodies, senses and minds to different
stimuli lets us understand how we connect with others, the world, and the vast and
complex map of human interactions.
The new luxury is also based on what is happening in our surroundings. The way
to experience it now is through our bodies, using the senses, going to feel, to touch;