A Golden Spider-Silk Textile at the Art Institute of Chicago

Get a behind-the-scenes look at this history and creation of this dazzling textile—the only one of its kind in the world—made from the strands of silk from over one million of Madagascar's golden orb spiders. On view at the Art Institute of Chicago through October 2011.

• Category

  Education

[Ben Watson]

thing is... I like the look of it. Now I want to touch and feel it

[ArcherR85]

gorgeous textile.

[SpenzOT]

It is possible to synthesize all the elements and proteins in spider silk. It has already been done. The problem is that the spiders alter the composition of the silk proteins when they spin it with their spinnerets. It's this process that is a complete mystery to us and we have been unable to replicate this spinning process to a sufficient degree. We have been trying though. Spider silk is a holy-grail textile simply because of all its wonder properties.

[john mckay]

lol i wish

[Hermit Sage]

Is it possible to synthesize it chemically 

[Hermit Sage]

Do people not make shirts from spider silk?

[IspankDragons]

I wanna touch it. Haha!

[FossilArts]

1:43 What is that place called?

[RebelHQ]

wow that's amazing.

[Jonathan Wojcik]

There's a species of golden silk spider here in FL, Nephila clavipes I think. They're immense but very timid and can hardly bite at all. The webs can stretch ten feet between trees and you the golden color where the sun hits.

[Alejandro Medina]

must be hell of expensive

[nkaneti]

very interesting, thanks so much for posting