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

这个项目最初提出了12篇论文，研究纺织品（如线、织物、服装或人工制品）如何调动、模仿和伪装性。在这种背景下，性被设定为一系列的实践和一系列的解剖学表达。事实上，在这个项目开始后不久，伯格出版社（Berg Publishers）——2007年出版了我的第一本书《双性人》（Intersex）——就根据这项研究委托出版了一本书，这些文章已经变成了12章，将于2009年由牛津的伯格出版社（Berg）出版，书名为《欲望的织物》（Fabrics of Desire）。在项目的发展过程中，一些文本已经出版或接受出版。最引人注目的是悉尼科技大学即将出版的《小说中的时尚》一书中的一章，以及切尔西艺术与设计学院的卡琳·西蒙森（Caryn Simonson）为国际同行评议的《纺织品：布料与文化杂志》（Textile: the Journal of Cloth and Culture）的“皮肤”特刊撰写的一篇6000字的文章，题为“我发现自己在她的皮毛里”。这个项目使我有可能正式调整我作为作家和纺织从业者的研究范围，并为一个尚未充分探索的领域做出重要的、知情的和原创的贡献。有机会以一本书的形式出版，而不是以不同的形式出版，这一点尤为重要，而且这本书的格式（12章8万字）使我能够处理各个章节和每个章节中使用的作者声音之间的关系。该项目试图研究纺织品与性相关的不同领域（例如，通过“性别化”服装、象征性服装、有意义的制作、恋物癖克制、身体适度、床上用品、纺织品意义、诱人的物质或解剖学模仿）。每个个人选择的研究领域都使用基于文本“横向扩散”的错觉方法，并通过对展出和存档的视觉/纺织艺术和设计实践的审查和解释进行了检查；纺织品文物;文学和电影中的纺织品；等。基于内容和结构，每个文本都根据自己的“声音”进行了独特的构建。这符合我对创造性/批判性/表演性/学术性/反思性写作的兴趣。通过在纺织和视觉文化领域的国内和国际评审期刊上发表，以及通过在爱尔兰、英国、澳大利亚和美国的会议演讲和公开讲座进行传播。值得注意的是，在这项研究的基础上获得的图书委员会（Berg），以及因此通过AHRC支持进行的一些研究活动，将在2009年以这种形式公开传播。该提案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以前在纺织实践和文本方面的研究成果的潜力，并允许我对纺织文化和实践的学科学科做出贡献。值得注意的是，它使我的研究重点更加明确，获得的项目管理经验使我在个人研究管理、研究目标的表达以及对特定时间框架内可实现目标的理解方面成熟起来。在这个项目中，我完成了一个非常重要的职业转变，从一个机构的纺织读者到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速度，最重要的是，我发现了一种新的操作模式，通过使用这项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苛刻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.