'Sextiles' - twelve critically-creative essays examining how textiles mobilise, mimic and masquerade sex...

该项目最初提出了12篇论文，研究作为线、织物、服装或手工艺品的纺织品如何动员、模仿和伪装性行为。在这种情况下，性被配置为一系列的练习和一系列的解剖表达。事实上，在该项目开始后不久，Berg出版商--2007年出版了我的第一本书《双性人》--委托出版了一本基于这项研究的书，这本书的随笔已经成为即将由牛津大学Berg出版社于2009年出版的一本名为《欲望的织物》的书的12章。在该项目的发展过程中，已经出版或接受出版了一些文本。最值得注意的是科技大学的一章，悉尼即将出版的一本名为《小说中的时尚》的书，以及一篇6000字的文章《我发现自己在她的皮毛里》，这篇文章是由切尔西艺术与设计学院的卡林·西蒙森客座编辑的国际同行评议的《纺织品：布料与文化杂志》上的一期特刊。这个项目让我有可能正式调整我作为作家和纺织从业者的研究范围，并为这个尚未充分探索的领域做出重大、知情和原创的贡献。有机会以书籍的形式，而不是以完全不同的形式出版这本书，这一点特别重要，这本书的格式(12章，8万字)让我能够处理各个章节之间的关系和每一章中使用的作者声音。该项目试图研究纺织品和性相关的不同领域(例如，通过性别服装；象征性服装；有意义的制作；恋物癖限制；身体节制；床单；纺织品的象征意义；诱人的物质性；或解剖模仿)。每个个人选择的调查领域都使用了一种基于文本“横向扩散”的错觉方法，并通过对展出和存档的视觉/纺织品艺术和设计实践、纺织品人工制品、文学和电影中的纺织品等进行仔细审查和解释。每个文本都根据其内容和结构针对自己的“声音”进行了特殊的构建。这与我对创造性/批判性/表演性/学术性/反思性写作的兴趣是一致的。授精通过纺织和视觉文化领域的国家和国际参考期刊发表，并通过在爱尔兰、英国、澳大利亚和美国的会议演讲和公开讲座进行。值得注意的是，基于这项研究的图书委员会(BERG)，以及随后通过AHRC支持开展的一些研究活动，将在2009年以这种形式公开传播。这项建议是根据个人和外部环境以及个人研究愿望仔细定义的。它使我能够在一个创新和实质性的项目中最大限度地发挥之前在纺织实践和文本方面的研究成果的潜力，并使我能够继续为我的纺织文化和实践学科做出贡献。值得注意的是，它使我的研究重点更加突出，获得的项目管理经验使我成熟了个人研究管理的方法，明确了研究目标，并理解了在特定时间框架内可以实现的目标。在这个项目中，我的职业生涯发生了很大的变化，从一家机构的纺织读书员变成了布莱顿大学建筑与设计学院的院长。这不可避免地影响了我在项目中的生产率，最重要的是，我发现了一种新的操作模式，通过使用由这笔资金支持的研究助理。这为我的研究提供了一种新的方法，并确保我即使在这个新的和要求很高的角色中也能保持研究活跃，尽管生产速度有所改变。

This project originally proposed 12 essays examining how textiles as thread, fabric, garment or artefact could mobilise, mimic and masquerade sex. Sex was configured in this context as both a series of practices and a range of anatomical expressions. In fact, shortly after the project began, Berg Publishers - who published my first book, 'Intersex', in 2007 - commissioned a book based on this research, and the essays have become 12 chapters for a forthcoming book titled 'Fabrics of Desire' to be published by Berg, Oxford, in 2009. During the project's development, a number of texts have been published or accepted for publication. Most notable are a chapter for the University of Technology, Sydney's forth coming book titled 'Fashion in Fiction', and a 6000 word essay titled 'I found myself inside her fur' for a special 'Skin' issue of the international, peer-reviewed Textile: the Journal of Cloth and Culture, guest-edited by Caryn Simonson of Chelsea College of Art and Design.This project has afforded me the possibility of formally aligning my range of research engagements as writer and textile practitioner and of making a significant, informed and original contribution to a field not yet fully explored. The opportunity to publish this as a singular output, which is in book form, rather than in a disparate form, is especially important, and the book's format (80,000 words in 12 chapters) has allowed me to work with the relationships between individual chapters and the authorial voice used in each.The project sought to examine distinct areas within which textiles and sex relate (for example, through 'gendered' garments; symbolic costume; meaningful fabrication; fetish restraint; body moderation; bed-linen; textile signification; seductive materiality; or anatomical mimicry). Each of the personally selected fields of enquiry have been examined using a Delusion methodology based on 'lateral proliferation' of text, and through scrutiny and interpretation of exhibited and archived visual / textile art and design practice; textile artefacts; textiles in literature and film; etc. Each text has been constructed idiosyncratically in relation to its own 'voice' based on content and structure. This is in keeping with my interest in creative / critical / performative / academic / reflective writing.Dissemination has been via publication through national and international refereed journals within textile and visual culture, and through conference presentations and public lectures in Ireland, UK, Australia and the USA. Notably, the book commission (Berg) that has been secured based on this research, and consequently some of the research activity undertaken through AHRC support, will be publicly disseminated in that form in 2009.This proposal was carefully defined in relation to both personal and external contexts and personal research aspirations. It has enabled me to maximise the potential of previous research outputs in textile practice and text in an innovative and substantial project, and has permitted on going contribution to my subject discipline of textile culture and practice.Significantly, it has sharpened the specific focus of my research, and the project management experience gained has matured my approach to personal research management, articulation of research aims, and my understanding of what is achievable within particular time frames. During the project I made a very significant career change from Reader in Textiles in one institution to Head of the School of Architecture and Design at University of Brighton. This inevitably impacted on my rate of production within the project, and I have most importantly discovered a new mode of operation through the use of Research Assistants supported through this funding. This has provided a new method for my research and ensures that I can remain research active even within this new and demanding role, albeit with a somewhat shifted pace of production.