Core Memory: Encoded by Newcomb Art Museum

February 19 – June 25, 2022

Core Memory 1 Encoded

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Faig Ahmed

Robin Kang

Beryl Korot

Ahree Lee

All photos by Owen Murphy and courtesy of the Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University, unless otherwise indicated. Works by Faig Ahmed appear courtesy of the artist and Sapar Contemporary, New York. Works by Robin Kang appear courtesy of the artist. Works by Beryl Korot appear courtesy of the artist and bitforms gallery, New York. Works by Ahree Lee appear courtesy of the artist. Above: Installation view, with works from Core Memory: Louisiana Native American Basketry pictured in the foreground (Marie Dean and Janie Verret Luster). Cover: Detail view. Cцeм Цaш. 3D.2.M ferrite core memory plate manufactured in Kursk, Russia, circa 1970s, data storage capacity 1024 bits. Courtesy of an anonymous lender.

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DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT By Maurita N. Poole, Ph.D. Executive Director, Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University With the dual exhibition Core Memory, Newcomb Art Museum draws attention to woven technologies as foundational sites of memory, consciousness, and the transmission of culture. What does it mean to encode something? Before examining a single work in the exhibit, it is helpful to consider what ideas the term conjures and how it can be related to contemporary understandings of technology. In today’s parlance, encode refers to a computational process of converting written characters into an efficient form, for the purposes of information storage. The word encode may also call to mind the bodily processes connected to DNA, or the primary material that carries and transmits the genetic information of living organisms. Cognizant of the shared Latin root for text (textus) and weave (texto), Newcomb’s Curator Laura Blereau further extends the concept to explore artworks at the intersection of digital and fiber art. She deploys the works of contemporary artists to reflect upon the driving forces of weave structures, a binary language that builds pictures, objects, and data. The Encoded section of Core Memory complements Newcomb’s concurrent presentation of Louisiana Native American Basketry, which pointedly shows how Indigenous artists have visually transmitted foundational aspects of their cultures through woven technologies. The contrast of the two projects reveals how tenuous the distinctions between art, craft, and design have become in the twenty-first century. Therefore, Core Memory’s exploration of Indigenous basketry as well as the ways in which labor of weaving by hand has been at the core of the programmed logic digital machinery is groundbreaking. Core Memory: Encoded features artists who employ the tools of communication in addition to fiber and numerical systems of pattern. Their practices rely on materials, processes, and longstanding craft traditions developed primarily by women. In this regard, the show is relevant and befitting to Newcomb Art Museum’s mission of recognizing the contributions of women in the fields of art and design. It also furthers the museum’s efforts to connect its contemporary exhibitions and programming to Newcomb’s history as an institution that prioritized needlework and embroidery in its curriculum, though it became known for ceramics. On behalf of Newcomb Art Museum, I express appreciation to the curator for the depth of her research and presentation of these fiber artists who tend to receive less attention than contemporary artists working in other media. The artists Faig Ahmed, Robin Kang, 3

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Cцeм Цaш. 3D.2.M ferrite core memory plate manufactured in Kursk, Russia, circa 1970s, data storage capacity 1024 bits. Courtesy of an anonymous lender.

Beryl Korot, and Ahree Lee should be singled out for their praxis that not only touches and inspires us, but also makes the exhibition possible. Invaluable support was provided by individual donors and philanthropic organizations that continue to demonstrate their confidence in the work that is done at our institution. Last, but not least, I am grateful for the contribution of all the museum’s staff, the preparators and installers, and graphic designers who are critical to realization of the curator’s vision. 4

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INTRODUCTION From 1902 to 1934, the curriculum at H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College in New Orleans offered courses in embroidery and needlework led by Gertrude Roberts Smith, one of the school’s original two arts instructors (the other being Ellsworth Woodward). The exhibition Core Memory draws from this creative legacy and its prescient synthesis of art, craft, and design to understand weaving technologies—the behavioral practice and its resultant material objects—as a universally accessible framework, transcendent of time and place. Informed by the Greek etymology combining téchnē (τέχνη, tékhnē) connoting art, craft, or skill, and logos (λόγος) meaning “word,” the exhibition posits that the technology of weaving functions as a writing system independent of formal language, yielding tangible repositories of cultural, social, and environmental information. Featuring the work of more than forty artists, Core Memory puts into conversation two modalities of weaving: Indigenous basketry and the emergent field of systems-based textiles. The exhibit explores disparate approaches toward media, tradition, and composition—and investigates the animating forces within each artist’s creative practice. Recorded audio interviews conducted by the shows’ curators enrich the presentation, giving audiences an opportunity to deepen their understanding of how the artists, in their own words, deploy the logic of geometry and numerical systems of pattern in the process of creative expression. Core Memory is presented as two equal chapters in visual dialogue: Louisiana Native American Basketry is co-curated by Dayna Bowker Lee, Ph.D., and Teresa Parker Farris; Encoded is organized by Newcomb Art Museum Curator Laura Blereau.

Marie Odelle Delavigne. Wall Hanging with Pine Forest design, c. 1902–1905. Silk in running and outline stitches on linen. Collection of the Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University.

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Installation view, pictured from left to right: Robin Kang. Isla Tortuga, 2017. Hand jacquard woven cotton, hand dyed wool, alpaca, chenille, plastic bag and synthetic yarns. Beryl Korot. Curves 3, 2016. Ink, pencil and digitally embroidered thread on paper. Artist Proof. Faig Ahmed. Virgin, 2016. Handmade wool carpet. Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody. Beryl Korot. Curves 5, 2017. Ink, pencil and digitally embroidered thread on paper. Artist Proof. Beryl Korot. Babel 2, 1980. Acrylic on handwoven linen.

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CORE MEMORY: ENCODED Curated by Laura Blereau, Curator and Coordinator of Academic Programming, Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University Gathering the work of four artists, Core Memory: Encoded explores the emergent field of systems-based textiles and marks a contemporary shift in art towards computational process and fiber arts. Faig Ahmed, Robin Kang, Beryl Korot and Ahree Lee use handloom weaving as a compositional framework imbued with history and precision. In works that range from painterly tapestries to sculpture, and from video to embroidery—these artists reflect on the cultural impact of modern communications on craft, and emphasize the role of the human body in building images and symbols. For Ahmed, Kang, Korot and Lee, handcrafted textiles represent a critical technology and a fundamental writing system upon which machine logic is based. The interlaced surfaces of the works on view are encoded with patterns that connect women’s labor, engineering and the natural world. These pieces, held in tension with tradition, reimagine the grid as a space of insight. The exhibition also includes examples of core memory panels manufactured by hand in the mid-20th century. The first digital computers, developed at MIT in the 1940s, used magnetic core memory to read, write and store processed information in a binary language of zeros and ones. The pathways of communication for these early electronic components relied upon handwoven metal wiring and tedious manual assembly. Pictured left: Unknown manufacturer. Magnetic core memory from a computer,circa1950s,boughtbyManfredMohrandEstaroseWolfson at a Paris flea market in the 1970s. Courtesy of Manfred Mohr and Estarose Wolfson. Opposite, top: Installation view, pictured from left to right: Faig Ahmed. Virgin, 2016. Handmade wool carpet. Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody. Robin Kang. Topaz Tetra Oscillator, 2016. Hand jacquard woven cotton, hand dyed wool, satin and metallic yarn. Robin Kang. Daggerwing, 2019. Hand jacquard woven wool, chenille, hand dyed cotton, and metallic yarns. Robin Kang. Obsidian Butterﬂy, 2021. Hand jacquard woven cotton, holographic yarns, chenille, and Tencel. Opposite, bottom: Installation view, pictured from left to right: Robin Kang. Isla Tortuga, 2017. Hand jacquard woven cotton, hand dyed wool, alpaca, chenille, plastic bag and synthetic yarns. Ahree Lee. Signal, 2019. Cotton, linen and copper on canvas. Ahree Lee. Noise, 2019. Cotton, linen and copper on canvas. Ahree Lee. Ada, 2019. Cotton, linen and wool on canvas. Ahree Lee. Disrupting the Industry, 2019. Cotton, linen and copper on canvas. Faig Ahmed. Social Anatomy, 2016. Digital video documentation of live action choreography for 360 participants, aerial view, Baku, Azerbaijan. Robin Kang. Topaz Tetra Oscillator, 2016. Hand jacquard woven cotton, hand dyed wool, satin and metallic yarn. Robin Kang. Obsidian Butterﬂy, 2021. Hand jacquard woven cotton, holographic yarns, chenille, and Tencel. Robin Kang. The Tinder Shaman, 2019. Hand jacquard woven cotton, hand dyed wool, chenille, metallic yarn, mohair, and peacock feathers.

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Top: Beryl Korot. Text and Commentary, 1976–1977. Five-channel video installation, black and white with weavings, drawings, pictographic video notations. 30 minutes, stereo sound. Installation view at the Leo Castelli Gallery, 1977. Photo courtesy of the artist. Bottom: Detail view.

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CURATOR’S STATEMENT Usefulness does not prevent a thing, anything, from being art. –Anni Albers,

threads of information tend to be stored in

1965, in On Weaving

and the raster scan lines of a cathode-ray

a linear grid—from textiles to magnetic tape tube television.3 Five synchronized channels

About ten years ago, multiple survey

of video documented Korot’s gradual

exhibitions across the US and Europe

creation of five handmade textiles, which

addressed fiber art and explored the

were hung as part of the installation along

medium’s historic parallels to modernism,

with weaver’s notations. The videos were

performance, and self-taught art. These

arranged systematically according to a

shows, taken as a whole, had a democratiz-

pictographic video score and animated by

ing effect on the language describing textiles

the movements of the artist’s hands and feet

and liberated the genre from negatively

operating a loom, which added a rhythmic

biased associations of gender and domes-

sonic element.

tic labor. Figures such as Anni Albers, Magdalena Abakanowicz and Elsi Giauque

In 1976, Korot explained her tactile

were brought to the forefront, along with

connection to hand editing video tape in

a younger generation of artists intrigued

terms of weaving:

with the expressive potential of fiber.1

Just as the spinning and gathering of wool serve

Three of these groundbreaking exhibits

as the raw material for a weave, so the artist

included the video art pioneer Beryl Korot

working with video selects images to serve as

who applied the principles of weaving to

the basic substance of the work. All technology,

her multiple channel compositions, such

in its capacity to instantly reproduce, store, and

as the critically acclaimed installation Text

retrieve information, has moved continually in

and Commentary, which debuted at the Leo

a direction that seeks to free us from laboring

Castelli Gallery in 1977. In this seminal

with our hands by giving us greater conceptual

conceptual artwork, Korot linked the human

freedom to organize, select, and judge. For

body to technologies of weaving and the

myself, it’s become clear that the greater my

written word. The work succinctly affirmed

understanding of the role of craftsmanship

that, regardless of the era, language, cultural

in working with the video medium, and the

region or transmission media deployed,

more manually active I remain in the selection

1 See Fiber: Sculpture 1960–Present at the ICA Boston curated by Jenelle Porter; the Drawing Center’s Thread Lines organized by Joanna Kleinberg Romanow; and Rike Frank and Grant Watson’s Textiles: Open Letter presented at the Museum Abteilberg. These 2014 exhibitions drew critical attention to the impact of women fiber artists, also including Lenore Tawney, Sheila Hicks, Eva Hesse, Faith Wilding, Lygia Pape, Elaine Reichek, Rosemarie Trockel, Sheila Pepe and others. 2 The work was acquired several decades later by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2015. https://www.moma.org/ collection/works/191231. 3 CRT television picture display is associated with analog televisions, and predates flat screen monitors that use OLED, LED, LCD and plasma technology.

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processes, the greater the possibility for making

main title, Core Memory, refers to a hand-

a technological work true to my intentions.

woven electrical component responsible

The exhibition Core Memory: Encoded considers information and language as a tactile experience, an idea that resonates with the practices of many fiber artists today,

for information storage that is found in the world’s earliest digital computers; while its subtitle, Encoded, relates to the numerical conversion of written characters.5

particularly those who use the computer

Weaving, like language, is a flexible structure

and new tools to extend their capacity

shaped by human consciousness; and over

for poetry and design. The presentation

time, the code of a weaving can be reacti-

welcomes a new generation of craft while

vated or decrypted. The pliable fiber of a

seeking to investigate textiles’ connection

textile—which can be manipulated, folded

to mathematics and communication. The

or spun to be made more compact—offers

4 Beryl Korot, describing her first multiple channel video work Dachau 1974, which debuted at the multidisciplinary art space The Kitchen in 1975. To read the full artist statement, see: Korot, Beryl and Ira Schneider, eds., Video Art: An Anthology (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), 76–77. 5 The verb “encode” first appeared around 1919 in the context of telegraphy. Oxford English Dictionary, “encode, v.” accessed February 1, 2022, https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/61744.

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instructions.6 Rods of the machine “read” holes on each card to control warp (vertical) threads, which were selectively raised and lowered according to the fabric design. The presence or absence of holes in pre-defined areas of the card represented a binary code– meaning there were two possible states, on or off, which could be symbolized by the numbers 0 and 1. The fiber art and objects comprising the exhibition Core Memory: Encoded may be understood as “digital” in either the sense of the word: its twentieth century implications as the Opposite: Installation view, pictured from left to right: Robin Kang. Isla Tortuga, 2017. Hand jacquard woven cotton, hand dyed wool, alpaca, chenille, plastic bag and synthetic yarns. Ahree Lee. Signal, 2019. Cotton, linen and copper on canvas. Ahree Lee. Noise, 2019. Cotton, linen and copper on canvas. Ahree Lee. Ada, 2019. Cotton, linen and wool on canvas. Ahree Lee. Disrupting the Industry, 2019. Cotton, linen and copper on canvas. Above: Unknown manufacturer. Magnetic core memory from a computer, circa 1950s, bought by Manfred Mohr and Estarose Wolfson at a Paris flea market in the 1970s. Courtesy of Manfred Mohr and Estarose Wolfson.

computer’s binary language, or the fifteenth century definition rooted in human anatomy and counting by hand. Weaver Robin Kang has used fiber materials for more than ten years to investigate the computer’s relationship to the loom.7 Throughout the exhibition, Kang’s bold handwoven designs evoke

clues to its seemingly endless adaptability

information landscapes, electromag-

to social and material change. Through the

netism and the wings of butterflies. Her

ages, artistic approaches and tools have

compositions combine 8-bit and glitch

changed as the human capacity for calcula-

aesthetics with high-chroma materials

tion has increased.

and marks that are native to digital

Hand loom weaving is an applied art and technology that has been in existence for thousands of years. The first automated

graphics. Inspired by circuit design, she renders futuristic images that synthesize natural and manufactured terrains.

loom was invented by Joseph Marie

To create her largest weavings, which

Jacquard between 1801 and 1806. This

measure 3,520 threads across, it takes

system, which later formed a basis for

several weeks of studio labor to wind

modern computing, was operated by a

the warp before engaging a months-long

chain of punched cards containing pattern

process of packing weft (horizontal) threads

6 Britannica Academic, s.v. “Joseph-Marie Jacquard,” accessed January 5, 2022, https://academic-eb-com.eu1.proxy.openathens. net/levels/collegiate/article/Joseph-Marie-Jacquard/43217. 7 Robin Kang, in-person conversation with the author, December 5, 2013, shortly after her debut of a weaving titled Core Memory.

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manually through the loom. In lectures,

designs for her digital Jacquard handloom

when describing how to read a weave

in Photoshop; typically, darkened squares

draft, Kang associates her threading, tie-up

indicate warp over weft, and blank squares

and treadling on the loom with computer

represent weft over warp. During the

code—and she equates the resulting

process of weaving, she’ll improvise her

weavings to webpages. She explains that on

selection of weft threads and experiment

weave draft diagrams, each square on the

with different color palettes and textures

grid serves as notation for the intersection

such as plastic bags, mohair, or metal fibers

of warp and weft threads. Kang makes the

reminiscent of soldered electronic wiring.

8 Robin Kang, Artist Talk, PowerPoint presentation at the Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, March 5, 2022.

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Opposite: Detail rear view. Robin Kang. Daggerwing, 2019. Hand jacquard woven wool, chenille, hand dyed cotton, and metallic yarns. Above: Installation view with three Robin Kang works, from left to right: Daggerwing, 2019. Hand jacquard woven wool, chenille, hand dyed cotton, and metallic yarns. Obsidian Butterﬂy, 2021. Hand jacquard woven cotton, holographic yarns, chenille, and Tencel. The Tinder Shaman, 2019. Hand jacquard woven cotton, hand dyed wool, chenille, metallic yarn, mohair, and peacock feathers.

The painterly images in Kang’s tapestries

and now passes her skills on as an instruc-

draw upon an interest in mysticism and

tor of fiber arts.

the sacred power of textiles, as well as a deep appreciation for antique computer hardware and a fascination with the technology’s origin in the Jacquard loom. Growing up in a small Texas town dotted with cotton mills and raised on the 1980s pop culture of video gaming, Kang was first trained in digital photography before turning to textiles. She has since researched the genre extensively through residency opportunities in the Americas and Europe

Four works in the exhibition are by Ahree Lee, a Los Angeles-based artist who uses a feminist framework to explain her connection to digital media and handmade textiles. In her words: My most recent project investigates how invisible labor, specifically work that has traditionally been done by women, is essential to the life of economic systems. By re-establishing the links between weaving, craft and computer technology, I hope to transform

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the narrative concerning women’s position within the power systems of society.9 In a weaving workshop that Lee led at the museum in April, the artist supplied participants with yarn and miniature looms to haptically demonstrate binary logic and arrays, while explaining their application in computer programming. Lee also pointed out that the term computer originally referred to the people who made calculations by hand—and underscored the fact that women’s labor as mathematicians was essential to organizing the wiring (or “software”) that programmed the first digital computer, ENIAC.10 Drawing upon past experience as a user interface designer, Lee spoke about her journey with software and discovering its ties to loom weaving.11 Within this expanded context of fiber arts, Lee further guided the group into a discussion of Ada Lovelace who was recognized

statement, “The Analytical Engine weaves algebraic patterns, just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves.”

posthumously as one of the first program-

Faig Ahmed’s five works in the exhibition

mers. In 1843 Lovelace published notes

include four weavings and a video. The

on Charles Babbage’s latest invention and

pieces are designed collaboratively in

she envisioned this yet unbuilt computer’s

his community of Baku, Azerbaijan, a

potential for creative applications, such as

historical center for carpet weaving in the

writing electronic music. Lee’s composition

South Caucasus.13 Ahmed’s compositions

Ada is an homage to the mathematician

deconstruct and reframe symbols from

and features a handwoven punch card

the five-thousand-year-old visual language

bearing an encoded translation of Lovelace’s

of Azerbaijani carpets. In the process of

9 Ahree Lee, website, artist statement, assessed January 5, 2022, https://www.ahreelee.com/artist-statement. 10 Kathy Kleiman, The Computers, The Remarkable Untold Story of the ENIAC Programmers, documentary film, Michigan: First Byte Productions, 2015, https://vimeo.com/ondemand/eniac6. 11 In the workshop, Lee also encouraged those curious about using code to program weaving designs to explore the open source p5.js JavaScript library for creative coding online, https://p5js.org. 12 James Essinger, Ada’s Algorithm: How Lord Byron’s Daughter ADA Lovelace Launched the Digital Age, New York: Melville House Publishing, 2015. 13 M. Alekperzadeh, The Azerbaijani Carpet, documentary film, Azerbaijan: Ministry of Culture and Tourism, 2009, https://ich. unesco.org/en/RL/traditional-art-of-azerbaijani-carpet-weaving-in-the-republic-of-azerbaijan-00389.

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Opposite: Weaving from the “Pattern : Code” workshop. Above: Ahree Lee discussing weave draft diagrams in the “Pattern : Code” workshop, April 9, 2022.

production, the plans for his elaborate

independence from the Soviet Union in

pieces are discussed in a workshop setting

1991. His woven sculptures are fantastical

and manually reworked into weaving drafts

and visually disruptive; they create illusions

on paper that are executed on vertical

in perspective and stretch traditional forms

looms with locally processed wool. Women

three-dimensionally in unexpected ways,

employed by the workshop are part a

sometimes incorporating drop shadows

sustainable cultural economy that supports

and drips. In Core Memory: Encoded, Ahmed

agriculture and family traditions.

probes social, ecological, and spiritual

The striking imagery of Ahmed’s work reflects the cultural diversity of Azerbaijan and its social transformation since

questions of a new political reality. Works such as Social Anatomy and Virgin reevaluate traditional notions of chastity and gender while addressing ritual and universal life 17

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Above: Faig Ahmed. Wave Function, 2016. Handmade wool carpet. Opposite: Detail view. Faig Ahmed. Door of Doors, 2016. Handmade wool carpet. Collection of Thomas Young.

cycles. His emblematic carpets Impossible

Beryl Korot’s eight works deepen the exhi-

Viscosity, Invert, and Door of Doors suggest

bition’s concern with weaving as an ancient

the kinetic moment of rebirth or casting off

and modern technology of communication.

obsolete beliefs.

Her six digital embroideries are layered

Rugs have long used ornamental elements to tell stories of the surrounding environment. Ahmed’s carpets possess the dreamlike quality of screen-based graphics. Patterns in his work speak to fiber’s domestic and decorative function through time,

compositions on paper that meld ink and pencil drawing with tightly sewn threads of varying shades. Intricate line work recalls the texture of draped cloth or a sweater, while punched surface patterns evoke her earlier weavings in Text and Commentary.

as he samples from a universal vocabulary

Two paintings from 1980 that Korot

of geometric, plant and zoomorphic motifs.

created as part of a series titled Babel

Ahmed explains the enduring beauty of

are among the earliest art objects in the

carpet production in terms of people and

exhibit. These handwoven canvas works

the grid: You can give attention for every knot

carry a translation of the ancient Tower of

. . . every dot has human concentration, human

Babel text from Genesis into Korot’s coded

power, like human energy.

language, an alphabet she invented based

14 To hear the full artist statement, see: Neta Norrmo, Faig Ahmed’s exhibition “Equation”, documentary film, Borås, Sweden: Textile Museet, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdLypNziPq0

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on the grid structure of woven threads. The

communication in a visual format. The sto-

Babel story is significant to this exhibition

ries told by their creations offer a reflection

because it ethically considers the uses

on the timeless intertwinement of science

and abuses of concentrated technological

and art, the architecture of our modern

power; it is a call for responsible usage of

era. In a wide range of materials, they

new tools.

handle complex patterns and investigate

Exhibiting in Louisiana for the first time, all four artists profiled in Core Memory: Encoded engage the craft of textiles to explore its unique capacity for structured

relationships between the hand, language and the machine. Ahmed, Kang, Korot, and Lee use weaving to contemplate the human condition and what is remembered or valued, from one generation to the next.

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Opposite: Beryl Korot. Weavers Notation—Variation 1, 2012. Digital embroidery and inkjet on photo rag paper. Above: Installation view with three Beryl Korot works, from left to right: Curves 3, 2016. Ink, pencil and digitally embroidered thread on paper. Artist Proof. Babel 1, 1980. Acrylic on handwoven linen. Curves 5, 2017. Ink, pencil and digitally embroidered thread on paper. Artist Proof.

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Robin Kang. Topaz Tetra Oscillator, 2016. Hand jacquard woven cotton, hand dyed wool, satin and metallic yarn.

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Labor Divisions Core memory panes from the 1950s and

Without the contributions of countless

60s such as those exhibited at Newcomb

women, as mathematicians, engineers,

maxed out at 1,024 bits, or 1KB of storage,

programmers, and skilled weavers, many of

which is less data than an empty MS Word

the advancements in computer technology

document today. At the time they were in

would not have been possible. As Robin

use, technological progress continued to

Kang’s and Ahree Lee’s work in the exhibi-

draw from weaving methodologies – using

tion illustrates, the profound lack of women

fine wire, a loom and magnetic rings to store

in the leadership and development of this

information in a binary code. Their woven

field in recent times does not follow the his-

assembly was done primarily by women in

tory of women’s importance to the field, but

factories who sequenced and coiled wires

instead marks the perpetuation of gender

by hand because machines at the time could

prejudices and sexism. As one early example,

not produce the same accuracy with the

Ada Lovelace was able to see the vast possi-

specific needs of manufacturers.

bilities of Babbage’s Analytical Engine when

Starting in the late 1960s, Navajo women were almost exclusively employed at the Fairchild Semiconductor plant on the Navajo reservation at Shiprock, New Mexico. Purportedly due to the women’s deft experience in weaving, the company outwardly praised their skillsets as ideal for such difficult work, which required

he and others could not, and in 1843 she published her findings in Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs under the moniker AAL. This text is now recognized as the first algorithm or example of software, however long after her death Lovelace’s historic contributions to computer science were misattributed, obscured or debated.

intense concentration and coordination soldering intricate patterns on chips under a microscope. Today the racialization of the native women is clear, just as it was no coincidence that by operating on a reservation, the company gained enormous tax benefits and government subsidies, while employing workers who could not unionize and were exempt from minimum wage laws. By the mid 1970s, as the American Indian Movement gained momentum and Shiprock plant workers complained of health hazards, Fairchild closed the plant and outsourced its operations to Asia. 23

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ROBIN KANG b. 1981, Kerrville, Texas Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY Robin Kang is an artist, weaver, and mystic whose craft synthesizes diverse studies of textile traditions and techniques in the US, Mexico, the Netherlands, Denmark, Guatemala and Peru. Kang hand weaves tapestries on a digitally operated Jacquard loom, the contemporary version of the first binary operated machine and argued precursor to early computers. Her colorful works contemplate information processing and combine mystical energy and symbolism with computer glitch and digital mark making. Honoring the sacred histories of textile arts, Kang has studied extensively with Mayan, Quechua, and Scandinavian weavers, and was initiated into the Amazonian Shipibo tradition. Recognized by a 2017 NYFA Fellowship, her work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Queens Museum, Essl Museum, John Michael Kohler Center, and the US Embassy in Saudi Arabia, among other venues. Kang earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012, and has since taught courses on fiber arts, fabric dyeing, and digital weaving at the Tyler School of Art, Parsons, and RISD. Also a Reiki master and sound healer, Kang is a spiritual student of Taino elder Maestro Manuel Rufino and an Ollintlahuimetztli Moondancer.

My woven tapestries explore the connections between contemporary technology and the history of textile fabrication. –Robin Kang

America. Additionally, a culture of video games and graphics connected to digital innovations from the 1980s and 90s were a dominant influence on entertainment, social life, and general communication for

Hi, my name is Robin Kang. My Shipibo

my generation.

name is Metsa Kate. I’m based currently in Brooklyn, New York City, and I grew up in

These influences have led me to research

Kerrville, Texas.

both technological developments connected to the history of textiles, as well as focused

Growing up in Texas I was naturally influ-

studies with master weavers and living

enced by craft traditions of the Southwest,

descendants of some of the most ancient

which is essentially a melting pot of rich and

textile traditions on the globe. I’ve studied

colorful traditions from Mexico, the tapes-

medieval weaving traditions in Belgium and

tries of Native American artisans from the

the Netherlands, historic Scandinavian tra-

Southwest, and early American Colonialist

ditions in Denmark, and South American tra-

weaving. These influences planted seeds of

ditions in Mexico and Guatemala. However,

interest in craft history, traditional tech-

my more in-depth apprenticeship expe-

niques with natural materials, and interests

riences have been in Peru with Quechua

in ancient mythology of North and South

weavers in the Highlands of the Andes and 25

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also through a deep personal connection

weaving has played in technological devel-

with the Amazonian artisans from the

opment. I feel that all these things strongly

Shipibo-Konibo tradition. Additionally,

influence my practice.

research involving the industrial history of the Jacquard Loom, early computer history, and the craftswomen behind the woven assembly and programming of hardware for the Apollo 11, points to the strong role that

My woven tapestries explore the connections between contemporary technology and the history of textile fabrication. Certainly, all the complex connotations that come with working in Fiber Art as a medium

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Opposite: Robin Kang. Daggerwing, 2019. Hand jacquard woven wool, chenille, hand dyed cotton, and metallic yarns. Above: Installation view with two Robin Kang works in the foreground, pictured from left to right: Obsidian Butterﬂy, 2021. Hand jacquard woven cotton, holographic yarns, chenille, and Tencel. Daggerwing, 2019. Hand jacquard woven wool, chenille, hand dyed cotton, and metallic yarns.

are inherently present in the materials and

specialized version of the Jacquard loom.

process of the work. Discussions around

It combines components of contemporary

gender inequality, the hierarchy of fine art

digitally operated looms used for mass

and the placement of ‘craft’; the pattern and

production in mills with hand weaving and

decoration movement, as well as labor and

manual capabilities. Utilizing this contem-

environmental issues of the global textile

porary version of the first binary-operated

industry are all present. However, I’m also

machine and argued precursor to the

inspired by more humanist themes, a deep

invention of the computer, I hand weave

appreciation of ancient handmade crafts

tapestries that invoke mythic motifs familiar

that speak to the human condition, cultural

to long histories of textile traditions with an

rituals, and spirituality.

added industrial mediation and cyber mys-

The foundation of my practice involves over ten years specifically working with my TC-2 digital Jacquard loom as a primary tool for weaving my artwork. This machine is a

ticism. Photoshop pen tool gestures layered with motherboard hardware graphics echo symbols reminiscent of ancient cultures, fusing together amid interlocking threads. 27

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The juxtaposition of textiles with electronics

the core, connected by the gridded struc-

opens an interesting conversation of recon-

ture of binary data.

ciling the old with the new, traditions with new possibilities, as well as the relationship between textiles, information systems, language, memory, and the sacred.

By incorporating graphics drawn from both circuit boards and patterns reminiscent of ancient weaving traditions, my work points to the influence that weaving technology

One of the first weavings that I ever pro-

has had on the development of modern

duced on the TC-2 digital Jacquard Loom

computing. From the influence of Jacquard’s

was a piece that I titled Core Memory. It was

punch card system—developed for his

essentially a rendition of the earliest form

loom—on the creation of early computers,

of computer memory, a ferrite memory

to the hand-woven copper wires found on

core. The piece of hardware itself, is both

early memory storage hardware, our cur-

a mini-loom and weaving at the same time.

rent technological landscape is closely linked

It’s a square with thin copper wires that

to the history of weaving. These intertwined

are carefully interwoven by hand with tiny

histories, which often remain unacknowl-

magnetic iron beads. The iron is charged

edged, upend traditional expectations

with either a positive or negative current

surrounding gender, labor, technological

which creates a data setup of binary code,

development, and cultural ritual.

that is programmed while it’s being made in this very tactile way. This type of memory storage predated RAM. I found it beautiful as a way to illustrate that this link between computer history and weaving really is at

Manifesting something completely tactile from what initially exists as a digital sketch, feels almost alchemic. The exciting part of the process is that the translation from

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Opposite: Installation view with three Robin Kang works, from left to right: Energy Transfer, 2018. Hand jacquard woven cotton, alpaca, hand dyed wool, kid mohair, silk, plastic bag, metallic and synthetic yarns. Arc Between Wires, 2018. Hand jacquard woven cotton, alpaca, hand dyed wool, kid mohair, silk, plastic bag, metallic and synthetic yarns. Voltage, 2018. Hand jacquard woven cotton, alpaca, hand dyed wool, kid mohair, silk, plastic bag, metallic and synthetic yarns. Above: Detail view. Robin Kang. Arc Between Wires, 2018.

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computer to the weaving is never exactly

I consider myself a weaver and a craftsper-

what you expect. Many ancient textile tra-

son because of the amount of research that

ditions involve intentional variations within

I’ve put into these craft techniques. I hand

the patterns that may seem like errors

weave each of my works myself, thread by

amid their designs. Often incorporated into

thread. My loom lifts its heddles according

the making process as a way to honor the

to the computer file that I program by way

Divine, these deliberate mistakes highlight

of a manual foot pedal, and I throw the

the humanness of the hand creating the

weft yarn shuttles back and forth by hand,

weaving. This concept feels quite relevant

just like one would with a floor loom. Not

in a digital age where human and machine

to mention all the labor that goes into the

are in constant dialogue. In my process I

loom setup and warp winding for a machine

break up mechanized rhythm by utilizing

that weaves 3,520 threads at 60 ends

many improvisational techniques during the

per inch. So, I guess I’m also a technician,

final hand-weaving stage. Such examples

too. The process involves countless hours

include incorporating unusual materials that

engaged in the labor of precise repetitive

would not be possible to weave with at an

action that also allows space for impro-

industrial mill, intentionally creating wild

visational variation. That’s actually why

extended selvages, or exposed floating warp

I’m engaged with weaving as an artist—

yarns. These acts embrace the beauty of the

because there’s a system I can creatively

handmade glitch, merged within a digital

engage in the moment, as I work.

process. 30

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Opposite and center: TC-2 digital Jacquard loom, Robin Kang studio, Brooklyn, 2021. Above right: Robin Kang studio, Brooklyn, 2021.

Much of my research is technical, such as

to sound vibrations and healing energies

learning about different cultural tradition’s

of sacred plants. This concept that visual

loom setup, weft yarn and knotting tech-

patterns are associated with a vibration or

niques, or the natural plant materials used

a current, shares an exciting relationship to

for color dyes. But the most memorable

the woven electric currents that I have stud-

experiences informing my practice have

ied in relation to the ferrite memory cores of

more to do with cultural traditions beyond

early computers.

the cloth itself. For example, my apprenticeships in Peru equally involved a study of shamanic spiritual traditions immersed in a lifestyle of respect for ancestors and living in harmony with the natural world.

My Shipibo Madrina (initiated Godmother) Amalia Bordales Franco, described that the patterns are ones that her people can see and hear in nature, by living harmoniously with it. In her complex cosmology the

The time that I’ve spent in the Upper

patterns are “artful prayers” that are sung in

Amazon forest living off the grid in an eco-

a musical score called an icaro. The icaros are

logically sustainable way, in a grass roof hut,

believed to bring healing vibrations on men-

learning the ways that various plants carry

tal, emotional, physical, and spiritual levels.

medicinal ancient wisdom, has been life

When the patterns of the icaros are woven

changing. The textile patterns of the tradi-

into cloth, the cloth is considered to carry

tion of Shipibo-Konibo involve correlations

those same healing vibrational prayers. 31

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Opposite: Robin Kang. Phantasmic Data Dawn, 2015. Hand jacquard woven cotton, hand dyed wool, synthetic yarns and plastic bag. Above: Robin Kang. Light Intel, 2019. Hand Jacquard woven cotton, metallic iridescent yarns, and mixed media. Pictured on two sides.

Ultimately, the personal experiences of this

process of creating textiles. In my work, I uti-

education have been a catalyst for a deep

lize abstract shapes found on contemporary

healing journey within myself, one that has

audio equipment circuits and early computer

forever changed the way that I view my

memory storage hardware as a basis to gen-

relationship to the planet. I’m so grateful

erate my own mythic symbolism. My pieces

to have had opportunities to study with

envision a fusion of new technologies with a

Indigenous elders who have humbly and

deep understanding of ancient sacred prac-

resiliently embodied ancient practices in the

tices and their harmonious existence with

face of tremendous obstacles over many

nature. These understandings can guide us

generations. I will forever be a student of

as we navigate the environmental challenges

these wisdom carriers, as I believe they hold

of our ever-changing digital world.

medicine that a contemporary Western society desperately needs. Robin Kang interview transcript. Running time 10 min, 21 sec.

I’m inspired by the ways knowledge can be recorded within patterns—both in weaving itself and embedded through the ritual

Conducted via Zoom on November 3, 2021, by Curator Laura Blereau. Written interview transcription by Curatorial Assistant Alex Landry. Interview text and audio have been edited for clarity by Blereau and Landry.

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Women and Technology Ahree Lee’s multimedia practice draws inspiration from women computer scientists—such as Anita Borg, who in 1987 co-founded Systers, a digital community for women to share technological resources and fellowship inside a safe supportive environment. In 1843 Ada Lovelace published the first algorithm for Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a precursor to the modern computer. Its logic was based on the Jacquard loom, which derives patterns using a series of punched cards. The early history of computer programming is filled with many women practitioners, including Grace Hopper, Katherine Johnson, Margaret Hamilton and the ENIAC programming team (Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Fran Bilas and Ruth Lichterman). In the 1960s, rope core memory containing software essential to the Apollo Guidance Computer was handwoven by women with expertise in New England’s textile mills.

Ahree Lee. Ada, 2019. Cotton, linen and wool on canvas. Courtesy of the artist.

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AHREE LEE b. 1971, Seoul, South Korea and raised in Philadelphia, PA Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA Ahree Lee creates work that is a composite of poetry and narrative, relying on technology and visual storytelling. She uses an interdisciplinary approach that both clarifies and complicates notions of identity and personal narrative, often incorporating video, new media, and textiles. As a child of Korean immigrants and raised distinctively American, she looks to the past and across distances to investigate what constitutes individual and collective identity in an increasingly diasporic, culturally alienated and fractured world. In her projects that establish links between weaving, craft and computer technology, she aims to transform the narrative concerning women’s position within the power systems of society. Lee earned a BA in 1993 at Yale University in English literature and an M.F.A. in graphic design in 2002 at the Yale School of Art, where she studied under Sheila de Bretteville. Her work has been recognized by many awards and residencies, and exhibited by venues such as the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, the 01SJ Biennial, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, and multiple film festivals.

My current work reclaims weaving as a computational activity and reframes computing as a craft.

I think for them, Korea represented the

–Ahree Lee

many of my cultural traditions are the same

past, and they were intent on creating a better future in America. As a consequence, ones other Americans have, like opening

I’m Ahree Lee. I’m based in Los Angeles, and

presents on Christmas Eve, or making

I grew up in Philadelphia.

Easter baskets or things like that. Then we

I have a somewhat uneasy relationship with my cultural heritage. My family emigrated from Korea to the US when I was a baby. We were among the first wave of families to benefit from the Immigration and Nationality Act, which reversed a decades-long restriction on the number of Asians permitted to emigrate to the US. So my parents were concerned that if they

had other traditions—they weren’t really Korean traditions, or even exactly American traditions—kind of a hybrid cultural tradition that we made up as we went along. I feel like this hybridization is at the heart of my art practice. I merge forms that might not seem to go together, like weaving and computers, into something that’s unique to my vision.

spoke to me in Korean, I would have trouble

Before I turned to my art practice full-time,

learning English, so they only spoke to me in

I had a career in the technology sector. I

English. I never learned Korean. They also

designed and hand-coded HTML websites

weren’t big on continuing Korean traditions. 37

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in the 90s. And then later, I moved to Silicon

problem or accomplish a task. Most often

Valley, and I worked in user experience

they’re associated with computer programs,

design. So my experience in the technolo-

but an algorithm can also be expressed as

gy industry runs from working at a small

a recipe or a knitting pattern. Sometimes I

startup to an experience design consultancy

use code to create things like computational

and to Apple. How that relates to my art

videos, but other times I follow rule-based

practice is that in my art practice, algorithms

manual processes that I set for myself. In my

are at the heart of my method. An algorithm

body of work, Pattern : Code, which exam-

is a set of often repetitive steps to solve a

ines the connections between looms and

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Opposite top: Video still. Ahree Lee. Me, 2001–ongoing. Digital video with sound. Opposite bottom: Video still. Ahree Lee. Bojagi (Memories to Light), 2015. Digital video with sound. 15 min, loop. Above: Ahree Lee. Timesheet: November 4–10, 2018, 2019. Cotton, linen, wool, viscose, rayon, and polyester.

computers, craft and code, and the value of

a hesitancy to claim an identity because we

visible female labor, I use my hands rather

feel like we don’t meet a certain threshold.

than computers to execute the algorithmic

In the same spirit, I consider myself a coder

process, weaving data into visual patterns.

even though I’m not an expert. And that

I do consider myself a weaver in that I make weavings. I think that, a lot of times, we have

reminds me of this anecdote: When I did my artist residency at the Feminist Center for Creative Work in Los Angeles, I brought 39

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together a group of women collaborators

coders because of some misplaced modesty.

to help me teach a workshop in weaving,

I feel like there’s less of that dynamic in craft,

coding, and physical computing. While we

because it’s perceived as a feminine activity

were planning the workshop, the ques-

to begin with, but it’s still there to a degree.

tion came up—am I a coder? And I kind of

Now I’m trying to stop holding myself back

hesitated and said, “Well, I know how to do

and owning my various identities as a weav-

some coding, but I’m not very good at it. I

er, as a coder, competently.

can’t do anything really complex.” And then one of them said, “Hold on, I can tell by the way you’re talking about it, that you actually CAN code, but you’re just not owning it.” Then I realized she was right. I’m a coder, because I do coding—not because I’m an expert at all, but because I’m a practitioner. A lot of people, women especially, hold themselves back and don’t own their identity as

I think that I’m always trying to take concepts that are often perceived as oppositional or binary, and show the nuances, and how they’re not as binary as we think they are. For example, we tend to think of craft and technology as two opposing concepts. Craft is made by hand, and technology involves machines. But the etymology of the

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Opposite: Ahree Lee. Pattern : Code, 2019. Artist in Residence Installation at the Women’s Center for Creative Work, Los Angeles. Above: Installation view, four works by Ahree Lee, pictured from left to right: Signal, 2019. Cotton, linen and copper on canvas. Noise, 2019. Cotton, linen and copper on canvas. Ada, 2019. Cotton, linen and wool on canvas. Disrupting the Industry, 2019. Cotton, linen and copper on canvas.

two words reveals something different. The

I may have alluded to this before, but for

root of the word technology comes from the

many years, I was exclusively a video and

Greek tekhne, which means art or craft, and

new media artist. But then a few years ago,

then craft derives from the Old English—I

I heard that the technology on which the

don’t know how this is pronounced, but I’m

first computers was based was derived from

gonna say cræft maybe—meaning strength

weaving looms, and that the first comput-

or skill. Technology is craft, and not its op-

er program was written by a woman, Ada

ponent. My current work reclaims weaving

Lovelace. Though I had been working in

as a computational activity and reframes

Silicon Valley and the technology industry

computing as a craft. By reestablishing the

for a decade, I had never heard this before.

fluidity between technology and craft, I want

So I wanted to learn more, and I found a

to bring a human, tactile quality back to

weaving teacher, and I started researching

technology and then use weaving and craft

the history of interconnections between

as a gateway to coding, demystifying and

weaving and computing—and through it, the

reclaiming technology for all who feel left

interrelationships between craft, women’s

out by it.

labor, and technology itself.

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One of the things that I learned was that

of computing, which is based on ones and

in the early 1800s, Joseph Marie Jacquard

zeros; and used punched-cards as input

invented a way to speed up the process

devices for their machines. As recently as

of weaving complex patterns by using

the 1960s or 70s, computers were still op-

punched-cards to determine which threads

erated with punched-cards. So in my piece

would be lifted or lowered in each row of a

Ada, there are two rectangular shapes that

weaving. Then the inventors of the earliest

are roughly the size and proportion of these

computers saw that the binary nature of

1960s and 70s era IBM punched-cards.

weaving—in which a thread is either lifted

So the black yarn marks spots that corre-

above or lowered below the surface of the

spond to punched holes. It’s named for Ada

cloth—was analogous to the binary nature

Lovelace, who, as I mentioned before, was

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Opposite: Ahree Lee. Noise, 2019. Cotton, linen and copper on canvas. Above: Ahree Lee. Disrupting the Industry, 2019. Cotton, linen and copper on canvas.

the 19th-century woman who wrote the

had punches in those same corresponding

first computer program. She observed that

positions that the black weft in my weaving

the computer, “weaves algebraic patterns,

occupy, then it would read that message,

just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers

Ada Lovelace’s quote.

and leaves.” So this is the message that I wove into this punched-card weaving, using the same language that computers read from the punched-cards themselves. If the computer were to read a punched-card that

Women dominated the computer programming industry in the early days. A fact not a lot of people remember. Not only did a woman, Ada Lovelace, write the first

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computer program, but the teams who

starting to turn girls away from computing.

programmed the earliest computers like

At that time, computer science was becom-

ENIAC were actually mostly women. In fact,

ing an increasingly popular major in colleges

the ENIAC team was all women. How that

around the country, but there weren’t

happened was that increasing numbers of

enough people to teach this. So computer

women with math degrees, who graduated

science departments had to put enroll-

from college in the 1950s, they graduated

ment caps on their majors, and they limited

amidst a boom of workplaces that needed

enrollment, often to people who already had

computer programmers to operate these

computer experience—in many cases, boys

machines that they had just bought for their

who grew up with personal computers that

companies. So women’s perceived patience,

they worked on with their fathers. And as re-

perseverance, and fastidiousness were seen

cently as 2017, only 20% of technical roles

as making them ideal computer program-

at Google were held by women. As the work

mers. Recruiters at that time looked for skills

became associated with men, the value and

like knitting or being able to cook precisely

pay of computer programming went up.

from a cookbook.

So my title Disrupting the Industry comes

So my piece, Disrupting the Industry, de-

from this often repeated boast by tech

picts the rise and fall of the percentage of

entrepreneurs, that their app or new tech-

computer science bachelor’s degrees that

nology will disrupt the industry. For example,

were earned by women from 1966 to 2010.

how Uber disrupted the taxi industry, or

There’s a peak at 1984, which is marked in

how Amazon disrupted first book selling and

my weaving by a band of copper wire, and

now all kinds of selling. In any other context,

then the curve drops precipitously to a level

like a classroom, disruption is discouraged.

close to that of 1966. So the question is

But, in Silicon Valley, this behavior is reward-

what happened in 1984? There are a num-

ed with venture capital money. The qualities

ber of things: Apple Macintosh was released,

valued in a tech worker and the idea of who

so there was this boom of personal comput-

belongs in technology have done a complete

ers that people could buy and then have in

180, and not many people remember that it

their homes. It turned out that a lot of times,

wasn’t always this way.

it was fathers who bought these computers for their young sons, thinking that they would have a father-son project to work on together. Also, around that time, movies like WarGames and Weird Science were out, and they were popularizing this image of a

Ahree Lee interview transcript. Running time 10 min, 27 sec. Conducted via Zoom on November 10, 2021, by Curator Laura Blereau. Written interview transcription by Curatorial Assistant Alex Landry. Interview text and audio have been edited for clarity by Blereau and Landry.

nerdy teenage boy-hacker. Maybe that was Ahree Lee. Signal, 2019. Cotton, linen and copper on canvas.

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Korot’s Alphabet In her art, Beryl Korot coded a language

separated by spaces, whether horizontal

as an abstract visualization of human

or vertical.

thought. She viewed this abstraction of the Roman alphabet written on her handwoven canvases as a contemplation of “language as still life.” Thinking about the relationship between text and language she notes: Text (textus) and weave (texto) share the same Latin root. Text is a tissue or fabric woven of many threads. It is a web, texture, structure, a thought; something that can be built, raveled and unraveled.

In Genesis, The Tower of Babel follows the Flood story. The world of Babel in Mesopotamia in about 3000 BC was a world moving from a herding society to one more agricultural and urban. It is a world impacted by bitumen used for mortar for fired bricks. As society transitions from a God-centered world to one more human-centered, commentaries on the text suggest that the bricks themselves were

In 1980 Korot handwove her first two linen

worshipped. The ancient story questions

canvases, Babel 1 and Babel 2. The painted

the social implications of a society advanc-

surfaces of these works carry a translation

ing through a new technology. The unity

of the ancient Tower of Babel text from

expressed in the first line of text, “and the

Genesis into Korot’s coded language. The

whole earth was of one language and of one

resulting abstract images operate as pure

speech,” is displaced by a suggested misuse

form until they are decoded. They reveal a

of power into a scattered race of humans

universal shape of all language: small pack-

who no longer understand one another.

ets of information placed in a linear manner,

Above: Beryl Korot’s alphabet system. Opposite: Beryl Korot. Babel 1, 1980. Acrylic on handwoven linen.

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BERYL KOROT b. 1945, New York, NY Lives and works in New York and Pound Ridge, NY Throughout her lifelong practice, Beryl Korot has brought the ancient and modern worlds of technology into conversation. An early figure in the history of video art, Korot was first known for her multiple channel video work in which she applied specific structures inherent to loom programming to the programming of multiple channels, constructing non-verbal narratives. Later, she invented a visual language based on the grid structure of handwoven canvas. Translating texts into her own language, she illuminated what thought might look like devoid of specific meaning. Her work has been recognized by numerous awards including Anonymous Was a Woman in 2008, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1994, and multiple NEA grants. Korot’s art has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Modern Art, The Kitchen, the Drawing Center and Leo Castelli Gallery in New York; the Tate Modern in London; SFMOMA, San Francisco; ICA Boston; Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow; and Documenta 6, Kassel. Her two collaborations with composer Steve Reich—The Cave (1993) and Three Tales (2002)—brought video installation art into a theatrical context and toured worldwide.

That the loom itself could become the first computer on Earth, is a testament to weaving’s enormous impact and ﬂexibility as a medium, a structure, an idea. –Beryl Korot

true to my intentions as possible. That’s the craftsmanship aspect of the work and I’m proud of that.

This is Beryl Korot. I live and work in New York City and in upstate New York; and I am an artist who pioneered the field of video art, multiple channel work in particular. But as time’s gone by, the work has become less screen based and more tactile. What I felt right from the start, in 1970, in working with technology, with video, per se, was the impending loss of tactility. And I felt that the closer I could stay to hand-making my work—meaning that I was my own engineer, my own editor, my own camera person—that that would keep the work as

Above: Beryl Korot. Weavers Notation—Variation 1, 2012. Digital embroidery and inkjet on photo rag paper. Opposite: Detail view.

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In 1970, I co-created a magazine called

and flexibility as a medium, a structure, an

Radical Software which focused on the

idea. To this day, I find it endlessly useful

information environment in which we lived

in my work. I was never really somebody

at that time dominated by newspapers and

who got lost in the fibers, but more in how

also broadcast media as a one way informa-

threads meet one another to create pattern

tion delivery system to our living rooms. But

and structure. Then there were all the meta-

it was the realization of a structural relation-

phors that we live with, you know—Penelope

ship between the ancient and the modern,

waiting for Odysseus and weaving to keep

between video and print and weaving that

her suitors at bay, “telling a yarn,” “the thread

intrigued me at that time; and it still does.

of a story”—all of these are metaphors for an

All three are communication technologies

underlying structure that creates cloth. And

that encrypt information line by line as

to me, that’s compelling.

an expression of how we think. Weaving actually became my thinking tool, and has stayed my thinking tool, it seems forever—it seems infinitely elastic and fascinating for me to realize that there is a numerical basis to abstract pattern based on the placement of threads on the loom. That the loom itself could become the first computer on Earth, is a testament to weaving’s enormous impact

My first weaving work was a four-channel [video] work called Dachau 1974 based on my visit in 1974 to the former site of the concentration camp in Germany which had become in a sense a tourist site. The juxtaposition of images across monitors based on the simple plain weave structure, (1 and 3) and (2 and 4)—that’s kind of under over, under over—bound the work as it proceeded

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Opposite left: Cover of Radical Software, Volume I, Number 1: The Alternate Television Movement, Spring 1970. Opposite right: Beryl Korot. Pictographic video score for the multiple channel video installation Dachau 1974, 1974. Above: Beryl Korot. Dachau 1974, 1974. Four channel video, black and white; 24 min, sound.

in time. We make a delineation in the West

another person who programmed and used

between art and craft that certainly isn’t

the machine. I made the drawings, I picked

made in many non-western cultures. I think

the thread color. I picked how far apart the

it boils down to the aim of the artist when

threads were supposed to be, what the

they’re creating that work.

pattern of the sewn layer would be, and

Early on, all my works were making a statement about the information culture in which we live, about technology. Those things were really on my mind. I would say that the digital embroideries I’m exhibiting

how open or closed they were to the drawn surface beneath—but I didn’t actually do the programming myself. So it was, in a way, a little bit of vacation for me, in a very pleasant way.

here was an opportunity that presented

I’m basically a self-motivated learner. I

itself when I was introduced to the printer

taught myself to use the tools I do by asking

Judith Solodkin in 2011 who was an expert

questions to those who know more than I

at using the digital sewing machine. I was

about what I wanted to learn. But I never

drawing at the time but wanted to combine

went to art school. I was a literature major.

the drawings with thread, and for threads and the pencil drawings to interact on a piece of paper. The threads added depth and additional layers to the original drawn surface. It was pleasant, because for the first time in my life, I actually worked with

The text for the two hand-woven pieces in the exhibition, Babel 1 and Babel 2, appear in Genesis. I selected them because they are actually the earliest example of thoughts about the human use of technology in the

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Above: Beryl Korot. Curves 1, 2016. Ink, pencil and digitally embroidered thread on paper. Opposite: Beryl Korot. Babel 2, 1980. Acrylic on handwoven linen.

ancient world that I’m aware that we have.

people gathered in one place to live. I was

The text itself refers to a period of time

intrigued by the Babel story itself and the

around 3000 BC when humankind was

commentaries on it as an early story about

moving from a herding society to one more

technological invention, about power, about

agricultural and urban. A dramatic shift not

its uses and misuses.

unlike where we are now as we shift from analog to digital. Then it was a world impacted by bitumen used as mortar between fired bricks—society moving away from a God-centered world to a more human-centered world, and where large numbers of

I was obsessed by all the connections. I realized that for hundreds of years artists were making their paintings on woven canvas, and I began to think about the woven canvas, its grid structure in particular. And I decided to start making my

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own canvases to paint on, but because

of dots that formed an A or a B or C or a

I was deciding the size and scale of the

D, and I translated the story onto these

thread, and I was thinking about language,

canvases. Babel 1 and Babel 2, are a way

and Babel, and the beginning of written

to contemplate what thought looks like,

language, I decided to write the story of the

small packets of information separated by

Tower of Babel with my own invented code.

spaces, horizontal or vertical and universal

It was a way to visualize thought devoid

to all cultures.

of knowable meaning unless you had the code. Some people would think it looks like a Morse code type of system, but it was in fact based on the grid structure of woven cloth. There were certain dots and groups

In a sense, I viewed the abstract text on canvas as a kind of language as “still life.” And the context for the text itself corresponded to a period of time when humanity was

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Left: Beryl Korot. Text and Commentary, 1976–1977. Fivechannel video installation, black and white with weavings, drawings, pictographic video notations. 30 minutes, stereo sound. Installation view at bitforms gallery, New York, 2012. Above: Detail view. Beryl Korot. pictographic video notations for Text and Commentary, 1976–1977.

transitioning from an oral culture to a writ-

us to explore space, so many indispensable

ten one. Probably one of the most extraordi-

uses and applications. I think it’s only recent-

nary technological leaps in human history.

ly acknowledged as a medium within the fine

Our technology is so much a part of who we are, how we express ourselves. The act of weaving itself and its myriad of programmed possibilities has sustained my interest over

arts field in part because of its programming aspects which preceded the computer, and because it’s viewed as women’s work, which is, more recently, being revisited.

my working life. Through the centuries it’s

When I was an editor of Radical Software

created works of enduring beauty while it is

in the early 1970s, I was very close to the

also the fabric on which we paint, the clothes

Chilean artist, Juan Downey and his wife,

that keep us warm, the fabric that allows

Marilys Downey, and Marilys was a weaver.

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She and I used to talk together about the programming aspects of weaving, and that pattern on a loom is actually based on a numerical structure. That was completely fascinating to me. Marilys said to me, “There’s a great woman, Claire Freeman, at the Y on 50th Street that’s got a room filled with looms. Go and study with her.” When I walked in, there were hundreds of looms, it was an unbelievable space. Claire was a woman of few words. She sat me down, she had me warping that very day, threading the next week and weaving the following week. She was an amazing instructor, and I guess I was meant to be a weaver. It was a latent trait that was activated in that memorable room. After the Dachau 1974 piece, there was a work called Text and Commentary that I made in 1977. I had begun to think that I wanted to create a work that linked the relationship between video and print and weaving in a more direct way. Text and weaving after all share a Latin root—texere. At the same time, I was reading the text and commentaries of the Torah or the Five Books of Moses, and I was struck by how you couldn’t really understand the text without realizing how many voices had pre-

from the ceiling above my loom, I wove and

viously commented on those texts to open

video edited and made weavers notations

them up beyond the written word. I thought

and pictographic notations of each element

why not create a work made up of a variety

of the work and placed them in dialogue

of media? Why not take video and weaving

with one another in a common space.

and bring them together into a dialogue, and have them describe a common source each within their own limitations. So from source material I recorded from a camera hanging

If ever I had an epiphany, it was in 1974 when I worked simultaneously for the first time with all three media. The information

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Beryl Korot at Broward College in Florida setting up Dachau 1974 on four monitors, 1976.

in each is encoded at very different speeds

come to us line by line, from the discoveries

and through very different processes. Time

of the ancient world to the present, as a

was a huge component, but at thirty frames

clear expression of how we organize pattern

per second the storage and retrieval system

and information.

of modern video technology was so much faster than the slow body time of weaving or writing technologies. Speed, for good or ill, is definitely a quality of technological development. Amazingly all three were encoded to

Beryl Korot interview transcript. Running time 9 min, 54 sec. Conducted via telephone February 25, 2022, by Newcomb Art Museum Curator Laura Blereau. Written interview transcription by Curatorial Assistant Alex Landry, and audio editing by Blereau.

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Azerbaijan’s Visual Language of Carpets Faig Ahmed’s use of textiles is informed by

other conceptual works by Ahmed contem-

his home’s storied connections to the Silk

plate the transformation (and endurance)

Road, which were recorded by Palestinian

of social and cultural values in periods of

geographer Al-Muqaddasi in the tenth

change—such as the country’s indepen-

century and by Marco Polo in the late

dence in 1991 following Soviet occupation

thirteenth century. The advancements of

for over seventy years, or the present-day

Azeri dyeing were already history in the fifth

material shifts from natural to synthetic

century BCE, when Herodotus documented

dyestuffs.

the region’s carpet weavers, who have been active since the Bronze Age some five thousand years ago. In 2010, UNESCO recognized Azerbaijani carpet weaving as Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Ahmed’s sculptures deconstruct decorative symbols and stereotypes. His choreography in 2016 for Social Anatomy, a live action performance at a Baku museum, openly addresses life cycles, sexuality and gender

Compositions such as Impossible Viscosity

constructs. Similarly in Virgin, a work fea-

and Invert are produced in the mountains by

turing thick red carpet pile, the title refers

women whose families sustain weaving tra-

to the unprocessed wool of sheep as well as

ditions, from herding to dyeing and teaching

the finished carpets traditionally presented

the young how to use looms. These and

at marriage as part of a bride’s dowery.

Faig Ahmed. Virgin, 2016. Handmade wool carpet. Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody.

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FAIG AHMED b. 1982, Sumqayit, Azerbaijan Lives and works in Baku, Azerbaijan Sculptor Faig Ahmed creates fantastical carpets as part of a diverse art practice which also includes painting, video and installation. Known for conceptual works that use the visual and multicultural language of carpets to deconstruct of symbols and stereotypes, Ahmed produces works sustainably with weavers from his native Azerbaijan, where carpets have been handwoven since the Bronze Age. Ongoing themes in Ahmed’s practice include change and the shifts of social, personal and cultural values during periods of transition. A graduate of the Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Art in 2004, his work was included in Azerbaijan’s inaugural pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007. It has also been exhibited at the National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow; the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland; RISD Museum, NYU Abu Dhabi, the Textile Museum of Sweden, Honolulu Museum of Art, and the Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design, among numerous galleries and other art spaces.

Weaving mostly comes from the family . . . I know and understand the technology and apply the principles to carpet. –Faig Ahmed

stain (dye) technology; that’s also important. Carpet weaving is related to women’s power because traditionally, they’ve made the carpets. It’s usually a woman’s work, not only here (in Azerbaijan). I traveled to differ-

My name is Faig Ahmed. I grew up in and

ent places in the world, and in most places,

am still living in Azerbaijan. It’s one of the

textile weaving is performed by women.

regions with a vibrant cultural heritage. I’m

It’s made with a woman’s intelligence and,

not talking about only Azerbaijan, but our

it could be said, with a woman’s philosophy.

neighbors, too. The borders in this region

It’s an ongoing tradition passed on from

can be different, according to language,

grandmother to the mother and then from

religion, countries, geography, etc.

mother to daughter. So that’s essential

Here, the women are keeping the carpet weaving tradition alive. They are “tradition keepers,” if I can say that. Carpet is one of the oldest objects that’s still created by

knowledge. Weaving mostly comes from the family. It’s something that’s existed for thousands of years and is still here, created by human minds and hands.

the hands of human beings, including its Opposite bottom: Installation view, pictured from left to right: Faig Ahmed. Impossible Viscosity, 2014. Handmade wool carpet. Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody. Beryl Korot. Weavers Notation—Variation 2, 2012. Digital embroidery and inkjet on photo rag paper. Faig Ahmed. Door of Doors, 2016. Handmade wool carpet. Collection of Thomas Young.

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Azerbaijan was part of the USSR for seventy

tradition is because tradition is something

years, which influenced Azerbaijan’s culture

that people follow for thousands of years.

a lot. In communism, one of the ideas was to

After the USSR, our society became more

start everything from zero: forget about tra-

secular. So that’s been a significant influence

dition, forget about the culture, forget about

on me because it poses one of the most

religion, and even language somehow—but

prominent questions about understanding

that never happened. For example, as I’ve

how we define ourselves—not only for me as

researched, I’ve learned that many things

an artist but also in society.

disappeared during these seventy years, and many parts of the culture may still exist, but without complex understanding. Azerbaijan, and other traditional societies faced with this issue, are in a unique historical situation. Today, I see another country with absolutely another philosophy. We have another set of values, like human rights and democracy, or capitalism, for example. It’s a new thing for us. Mostly, our culture, like our traditional understanding of the world, somehow comes from the cultural core of religion. All traditional objects (not only carpets or visual things) relate to a particular philosophy—and religion was usually the center of society, or at least it was for thousands of years. My parents were scientifically trained, as well as my grandfather and grandmothers from both sides. My mother is a medical doctor, and my father is an engineer, so I grew up in a non-religious family. I was not taught based on traditional values, and I think that was quite dangerous on some level. Because if you don’t teach in your home or family that the most significant thing in our community (which was an early site of Zoroastrianism) is religion, then it can have serious consequences. It’s hard to say what

I started to create with computers when they became available to purchase in this country. As an artist, I used to work with different design companies. So for work I learned a lot about various programs. At some point, two things connected for me when I started to work with carpets. As a young man, I was trying to survive in this world by learning new technologies. Another part of me was interested in traditional things, like religion, and I was drawn to carpets because of their symbols. So at first, I created visual parallels with the Buddhist Mandala, where there’s a very systematic pattern. But in general, I was interested in the ancient knowledge of finding yourself. It’s a kind of process: you’re visualizing it, drawing it, and then erasing it. I do not consider myself a craftsman. Technically, I can weave carpet; however, I’ve only done it maybe ten times. I know and understand the technology and apply the principles to carpet. I use another system. Absolute freedom comes only from the inside. Revealing new inspirations, wherever they originate, is from the inside. Faig Ahmed. Door of Doors, 2016. Handmade wool carpet. Collection of Thomas Young.

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Opposite: Faig Ahmed. Liberation, 2018. Handmade wool carpet. Above: Faig Ahmed. Siddharta Gautama, 2017. Handmade wool carpet.

Things outside of us are old. That is what

Virgin for example. The concept of virginity

we know. Door of Doors for example, right?

is directly related to traditional mentalities.

It’s something that goes inside with itself,

This exists in many cultures, and of course in

just copying itself. It’s like a dream. When

Azerbaijan too, and the work is critical about

we’re dreaming, we see something that

this notion of family values necessitating

does not exist, of course—sometimes it

virginity. Both Virgin and the video work

exists, sometimes not—but it’s mostly a

Social Anatomy are part of a larger project

copy of this world.

that considers sexuality in Azerbaijan. It’s

Some of the works operate as simple metaphors, like presenting a code for something that you can apply to different situations or processes. But some of the other works offer detailed histories and stories, like

one of the hidden topics that you can’t even talk about with your friends in Azerbaijan most of the time. Many of my works are related to something that exists, but nobody is discussing. 65

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Above: Installation view, pictured from left to right: Robin Kang. Isla Tortuga, 2017. Hand jacquard woven cotton, hand dyed wool, alpaca, chenille, plastic bag and synthetic yarns. Beryl Korot. Curves 3, 2016. Ink, pencil and digitally embroidered thread on paper. Artist Proof. Faig Ahmed. Virgin, 2016. Handmade wool carpet. Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody. Beryl Korot. Curves 5, 2017. Ink, pencil and digitally embroidered thread on paper. Artist Proof. Beryl Korot. Babel 2, 1980. Acrylic on handwoven linen. Faig Ahmed. Social Anatomy, 2016. Digital video documentation of live action choreography for 360 participants, aerial view, Baku, Azerbaijan. Opposite: Video stills. Faig Ahmed. Social Anatomy, 2016.

Social Anatomy was the base of this project,

considering how everybody is related

where I tried to use the carpet as a tradi-

to one another. Starting from sex to the

tional cultural object related to important

different stages for man and woman, then

rituals. I started first with first with sex;

marriage, and death. One of the elements

going from birth to marriage, because

in this video is death. So it presents a whole

there are specific processes for men and

circle of life, from birth to death, focusing

for women, even biological processes. For

on the main rituals of human behavior.

men, circumcision is a traditional rite of passage—not only here, but it’s an Islamic and Jewish ritual that’s enacted in different ways. Some circumcise when boys are born; some do it at about seven years old or even later. It exists, and from my perspective, this is a critical personal moment that’s traumatic psychologically. Social Anatomy was a way to look at society systematically,

In the case of this video, I used Azerbaijani cultural elements as a metaphor for society in general. One can experience this work, compare it with another society, and see other structures. So that was the idea of this work: to understand mass human behavior in a structured way. It’s not chaotic. Rather than focus on free will, this piece is more

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concerned with systems that connect us to each other. When creating this work, I actually used real people who knew just what to do. I didn’t teach them; that part was experimental. I put together some essential elements like food and cues that everybody knows, like for the circumcision and funeral rituals. The performers had an instinct for the behavior—and for me, it was interesting to see how people just knew what to do, how to behave, or follow along. Invert is also one of the experimental works. It’s metaphorical, and this work features two types of threads. One is naturally dyed

related traditions. However, it’s not disap-

with traditional plants and minerals. The

pearing—but transforming, from one to the

other is colored by a synthetic dye process.

other, because the pattern is still present.

They are juxtaposed. One color palette

It’s the same pattern but two different

appears to be disappearing while another

technological processes. This piece is about

is becoming. This is a radical change—con-

our way of thinking today, and how we’re

sider losing the technologies of wool and its 67

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Left: Faig Ahmed. Invert, 2014. Handmade wool carpet. Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody. Right: Faig Ahmed. Impossible Viscosity, 2014. Handmade wool carpet. Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody. Opposite: Detail view. Faig Ahmed. Impossible Viscosity, 2014.

visualizing the things that could not have

society—and it’s also personal because

been be visualized in the past.

society begins with a unique perspective

Impossible Viscosity is the impossible viscosity of a traditional society or tradition in general. It’s not disappearing when you’re trying to stretch it; it’s not disappearing; it’s transforming. What are the borders of its stretching? This work is a question and asking something. I’m not making a statement; it’s not manifesting a specific idea. It’s just questioning, “What will happen?” It will stretch.

from personal feelings. If you possibly expand, then you become something else—and then you shouldn’t be relying on tradition, on conservative thoughts, or maybe just partly rely on them and partly be flexible to change. So, again, I’m asking it as a question. Is it possible? And which way is it possible? We may be able to obtain numbers and statistics, but we can’t see the system of a society that is transforming.

This is something that exists now, and somehow it can be beautiful. But at the same time, we see there is tension. What’s to happen with the old way of thinking, the traditional thinking? This is about trying

Faig Ahmed interview transcript. Running time 13 min, 16 sec. Conducted via Zoom on December 21, 2021, by Curator Laura Blereau. Written interview transcription by Curatorial Assistant Alex Landry. Interview text and audio have been edited for clarity by Blereau and Landry.

to change the conservative thinking of 68

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Laura Blereau is the Curator and Coordinator of Academic Programming at the Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University, where she creates exhibitions that highlight women artists and socially engaged art practices. Working within the framework of a collecting institution that celebrates the legacy of the Newcomb Pottery Enterprise, Blereau has curated many projects for the museum, such as Core Memory (2022), Laura Anderson Barbata: Transcommunality (2021), Brandan ‘Bmike’ Odums: Not Supposed 2-Be Here (2020), the traveling group exhibition Per(Sister): Incarcerated Women in Louisiana (2019), Fallen Fruit: Empire and Clay in Place (2018). From 2016–17 she served as Curator for the Hilliard University Art Museum in Lafayette where she initiated a series of video art exhibitions and the kinetic sculpture exhibit Lin Emery: A Movement, 1957–2017, among others. Previously Blereau worked independently and with galleries. She holds a BFA from LSU and an MFA in New Forms from Pratt Institute.

SPECIAL THANKS The team at Newcomb Art Museum expresses gratitude to all the artists and their elders represented in the dual exhibition Core Memory. Special thanks to consulting Tribal officers, and to our lenders: Middle American Research Institute, New Orleans Museum of Art, LSU Museum of Art, Louisiana State Museum, Williamson Museum, Don Fuson, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Thomas Young, bitforms gallery, Sapar Contemporary, John Paul Darden, Rose Fisher Greer, Janie Verret Luster, Robin Kang, Ahree Lee, Manfred Mohr and Estarose Wolfson, Elisabeth Pierite, and anonymous.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM The Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University builds on the Newcomb College legacy of education, social enterprise, and artistic experience. Presenting inspiring exhibitions and programs that engage communities both on and off campus, the museum fosters the creative exchange of ideas and cross-disciplinary collaborations around innovative art and design. The museum preserves and advances scholarship on the Newcomb and Tulane art collections. 70

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The academic institution for which the museum is named was founded in 1886 as the first degree-granting coordinate college for women in America. The H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College was distinguished for educating women in the sciences, physical education, and, most importantly, art education. Out of its famed arts program, the Newcomb Pottery was born. In operation from 1895 until 1940, the Newcomb enterprise produced metalwork, fiber arts, and the now internationally renowned Newcomb pottery. The museum today presents original exhibitions and programs that explore socially engaged art, civic dialogue, and community transformation. The museum also pays tribute to its heritage through shows that recognize the contributions of women to the fields of art and design. As an entity of an academic institution, the Newcomb Art Museum creates exhibitions that utilize the critical frameworks of diverse disciplines in conceptualizing and interpreting art and design. By presenting issues relevant to Tulane and the greater New Orleans region, the museum also serves as a gateway between on and off campus constituencies.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The city known as New Orleans, including the Tulane campus and Newcomb Art Museum, occupies an Indigenous space at the confluence of many waterways and travel routes. The boundaries of this place have always been permeable; the land and water on which our city sits has witnessed trade and cultural interaction between various Indigenous Nations for centuries. These nations include, but are not limited to the Chitimacha, Biloxi, Houma, Choctaw, Atakapa-lshak, Washa, Chawasha, and Tunica. To this day, Indigenous Peoples dwell in the city. Bulbancha is a Choctaw word meaning “the place of foreign languages;’ and it is still in use as a word to define our urban locale. Indigenous Peoples have contributed an enduring cultural legacy to New Orleans-a place where Indigenous and African Peoples have been trafficked, enslaved, and discriminated against; and where People of Color have fought for justice and equity for over 300 years. This statement embodies Newcomb Art Museum’s commitment to inclusion and understanding of our institutional history and responsibility to continue learning.

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The Core Memory: Encoded exhibition and related academic programs are funded in part by the Dorothy Beckemeyer Skau Art and Music Fund at the Newcomb Institute.

Tulane University 6823 St. Charles Avenue New Orleans, LA 70118 NewcombArtMuseum.Tulane.edu 504.865.5328

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