SHOP THE MOTH T-SHIRT

the moth essay

A person standing in a minimalist room with concrete floors and ceiling, wearing a black hat, a white oversized T-shirt with a small black bird logo, black long sleeves underneath, and wide-leg black pants, with plants and furniture in the background.
Black and white pixelated image of a rose.

Wearing nature reshaped by the digital is to stand at a threshold: matter and code, earth and abstraction. The digital holds meaning only when it deepens our roots in the living world.

The tangible is a threshold; the intangible is the breath that crosses it. In the wearable, matter and sign seek each other: the skin measures weight, thought opens the field. Not two worlds, but a single cadence: what is touched shapes what eludes, what eludes orients what is touched. To remain earthly is to accept this weave—roots in soil, gaze in the unseen, a step that unites.

Person wearing a black T-shirt with a small, winged emblem on the chest, standing against a plain white background.
Back view of a woman with straight black hair wearing a beige t-shirt with a large black moth graphic on the back.

Nature is translated, printed, and impressed onto a wearable canvas that declares connection: the body becomes the site where image and earth coincide. The image speaks a digital visual language—grids, pixels, vectors—yet the subjects remain evocatively natural, carrying leaf, stone, tide as living presences within the artifact.

The connection intensifies through direct action: a physical gesture in a world of rising virtuality. By framing the printed artifact with a smartphone, the piece reveals itself “with magic” only on the screen, underscoring the difference between digital and non-digital while marking their bond through manual intervention. The hand anchors the code; the device discloses the invisible; together they braid matter and apparition.

Diagram showing augmented reality process for printing on a t-shirt, including a device, link, AR, print, and canvas, with a QR code and instructions at the bottom.

Scan the code or tap to open

QR code.

Tiktok

A QR code that can be scanned with a smartphone to access a website or information.

snapchat

A large butterfly sculpture perched on top of a tall building in an urban setting, with other buildings visible in the background, on a cloudy day.
A person with dark hair sitting on a patterned rug, holding a decorative Aboriginal-style boomerang or shield, in a black and white photo.
A man wearing a black oversized t-shirt with a small logo on the chest, black wide-leg pants, and a black face mask, standing indoors in front of a white wall with decorative paneling and wooden flooring. His face is partially obscured by a black bar.