Chaotic malfunctions and profound sentiments
In the realm of contemporary art, a fascinating trend is emerging as several artists delve into the historical link between weaving and binary code, merging early computing, digital culture, and traditional textile arts. This exploration, inspired by figures like Ada Lovelace and Hannah Ryggen, challenges the binary and brings to light the tactile and narrative complexity behind digital logic and cultural histories embedded in textiles.
Ada Lovelace, who developed the first computer programme in 1842-43, was herself inspired by the Jacquard loom, a weaving machine that used punch cards for programming. Fast forward to modern times, and artists like Margo Wolowiec are explicitly linking weaving's structure to digital pixels and binary logic. Her project, *Still Water, Circling Palms*, investigates digital culture and internet imagery through a tactile, woven lens, merging hand weaving with digital printing techniques and modern commercial materials.
The Jacquard loom, historically a precursor to binary code in computing, continues to inspire contemporary art-makers integrating binary code and weaving. Romain Froquet's "Tissage Urbain" installation uses a low-tech system combining sticks painted with binary code and graphic alphabets. Visitors actively decode messages, engaging physically with binary patterns translated through weaving and graphic forms.
The TEXTSTURES 2025 fashion show features designers pushing the boundaries between tradition and digital/informational themes in textile art. They explore identity, resilience, and metaphor through structural and material transformations of garments, blurring the lines between art and fashion.
In the exhibition "Unweaving the Binary Code," curated and displayed at Kunsthall Trondheim, artists like Himali Singh Soin, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Thania Petersen, Marilou Schultz, and Vaimaila Urale, among others, showcase works that complicate the simplistic oppositions between art and craft. Soin's Mountain, pixelated in the water, is a silk-cotton tapestry depicting the soundwaves of ice crystals, gesturing to histories of trade and connecting the forces of globalisation with climate change. Brathwaite-Shirley's work combines a large-scale tapestry and motion-capture video game, glitching gender binaries while centring on Black trans identities, creating archives as repositories and havens for Black trans people and their stories.
The intersection of early computing, digital culture, and traditional textile arts is not just a playful exploration of history but a thoughtful commentary on the state of the modern world. The cultural theorist Sadie Plant suggests that the introduction of zero by Indian mathematician and astronomer Brahmagupta in the seventh century CE produced great apprehensiveness in the Western world, as ones were considered holistic entities and zeros were devalued as lack and fundamentally female. In computing, glitches are moments of fervour that exceed the path pregiven by code. Realising the potential of glitches, curator Legacy Russell writes that hacking the "code" of gender, making binaries blurry, becomes a revolutionary catalyst.
The historical connection between weaving and binary code is not without its paradoxes. Paradoxically, both Jacquard punch cards and electronic systems turn the binary of ones as holistic and zeros as lacking around. A hole stands for a one and a blank represents a zero. This paradox is beautifully reflected in works like Hannah Ryggen's, who questioned the divide between art and craft and considered her tapestries to bridge the gap.
The story of weaving and binary code is a rich tapestry of history, technology, and art, interwoven with tales of revolution, resistance, and transformation. As artists continue to explore and challenge this relationship, we are reminded of the power of art to question, challenge, and redefine our understanding of the world.
Artists like Margo Wolowiec and Romain Froquet, following in the footsteps of historical figures such as Ada Lovelace and Hannah Ryggen, merge the traditional art of weaving with modern technology, specifically artificial-intelligence, by linking weaving's structure to digital pixels and binary logic. In the exhibition "Unweaving the Binary Code," curated by Legacy Russell, several artists examine the historical link between weaving and binary code, question the simplistic oppositions between art and craft, and offer thoughtful commentaries on the state of the modern world by integrating art, technology, and cultural histories embedded in textiles.
