Layla Klinger
BETATESTERS / DOOMSDAYERS
© Layla Klinger, photo by Elisheva Gavra.
“Physical computing” is how Layla Klinger refers to their practice of scaling up structures found in textiles and illuminating them with touch-sensitive electrical currents. Tension is both the subject and the system holding together their sculptures. Klinger is a self-taught bobbin lace maker who applies their interest and experiences in coding to create immersive, life-size, color-changing installations made from electroluminescent wire, a material they encountered during their time at electronic textile camp in 2023. The complexities of the works also reflect the erotic queer spaces important to the artist, where bodies are encouraged to touch, explore, and see what happens—and where object and subject are one and the same.
To experience their work, you have to be a part of it, so Klinger wants the viewer to come down to the lace’s level, which in essence, is constituted by holes. In speaking about Pollination, “On one hand it’s erotic, and on the other it is violent; it’s a still object constantly committed to being touched.” When activated, Klinger’s work aims to signify positive or negative touch, consent or displeasure, through light; and the entanglement of the work itself is analogous to queer “safe spaces” that the artist feels are both liberating and confining at the very same time.
B. 1993, Tel Aviv
Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY
Sea, Swallow Me, 2024 Electroluminescent wire 34.75" W x 120" D, Courtesy of the artist