For those presently undertaking research and practice within the
field of digitally printed textiles, inadequately defined boundaries
can potentially lead to confusion and misunderstanding. This
paper aims to clarify what is meant by the term digital print and
locate authenticity within it, by drawing comparisons with
photography in order to better explain some of the contextual
issues that currently surround the digital printing of textiles.
The scope ranges from an initial idea formed as a digital file that
is stored on a computer, to the act of depositing droplets of dye
through the print heads of a digital printer as an image, which is
subsequently steamed and fixed onto the fabric substrate. There
are, however, many processes and techniques involved in digital
printing, none of which are unique to the digital printing of
textiles; each individual technique, according to Cambridge
University’s Andy Hopper, ‘can also be used to manufacture highvalue,
high precision products such as flat-panel displays, printed
electronics, and photovoltaic cells for power generators’ (2010).
Also, as author Sarah Braddock Clarke states, the computer is
only a tool, so it is not the computer, but rather the artist or
designer, who makes the ‘aesthetic decisions’ (2007: 178).
Nonetheless, increasingly these technologies are providing
complex, rewarding and aesthetically challenging opportunities
for contemporary textile artists, designers and craftspersons.