Chloe Bensahel

Zach Lieberman and the MIT Media Lab Future Sketches group hosts CAST Visiting Artist Chloe Bensahel to conduct new research around textile and memory, building on MIT’s legacy as the first place to weave memory technologies.

Chloe Bensahel considers textiles to be containers of information, carrying language, stories, and belief systems woven in by the human mind. Her recent work uses conductive thread technologies to create textiles that can “speak” their own stories through elements like sound and light. At MIT, Bensahel will dive into historical innovations that harnessed textiles as potent forms of code in order to create new memory technologies using traditional textile techniques.

Bensahel will lead a textile workshop and collaborate with a community of artists and research scientists shaping the future of textiles at the MIT Media Lab and in the Art, Culture, and Technology program at MIT.

Past Events

After Dark: Threads
Thursday, March 14, 2024 / 6:00-9:00pm
MIT Museum, Gambrill Center
314 Main Street, Building E-28
Cambridge, MA 02142

After Dark is an adults-only, after-hours event that takes place in the MIT Museum on the second Thursday of every month. Each event is themed, and full of science and surprises. In March 2024, explore traditional textile techniques, emerging technologies, and everything in between. Artist talks by Chloe Bensahel, 2023-24 Ida Ely Rubin Artist in Residence, and Ganit Goldstein, Masters Candidate in the Computation group at MIT Architecture and Research Assistant at the MIT Self Assembly Lab; felt painting activities; smart textile demos; and more. Delicious dumplings from Mei Mei and tasty brews from Aeronaut available for purchase.

Zach Lieberman, Adjunct Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences and leader of the Future Sketches Group, is an artist, researcher, and educator who creates opportunities for surprise. His performances and installations amplify human gestures—by making drawings come to life, imagining what the sound of a voice might look like, or transforming people’s silhouettes into music.

Biography: MIT Media Lab
Website: zach.li 
Social: Instagram | YouTube

Artist and architectural historian, Azra Akšamija is the Director of the MIT Future Heritage Lab, an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture, and the Director of the Art, Culture, and Technology program at MIT.

In her multidisciplinary work, Akšamija investigates the politics of identity and memory. Her projects explore creative responses to conflict and crisis, and provide a framework for analyzing and intervening in contested sociopolitical realities.

Biography: Art, Culture & Technology Program at MIT
Website: azraaksamija.net  and futureheritagelab.com

Technical support:
Jesse Jur, Director of Technical Program Development at Advanced Functional Fabrics of America
Frannie Logan, Textile Technologist at Advanced Functional Fabrics of America

Chloe Bensahel’s MIT residency is supported by a grant from the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology and co-presented with the Art, Culture, and Technology Program at MIT and the MIT Media Lab.

Chloe Bensahel’s Villa Albertine residency was conducted in partnership with the Mobilier national and with the support of Bettencourt Schueller Foundation.

Technical support and equipment access provided by Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA), a non-profit institute focused on invigorating the US textile industry through innovative technology, collaboration, and education.

Rooted in textiles, performance, and installation, CAST Visiting Artist Chloe Bensahel’s work addresses the relationship between narrative and material, text, and textile. Inspired by her own intergenerational history of migration (Algeria, Morocco, France, USA), she examines how materials carry stories the way bodies do, sometimes covertly as embodied or coded language.

Website: chloebensahel.com
Social: Instagram