GT23 - Charite Carballo - SYNTAX

CYPHERED THREADS

CHARITE CARBALLO SCI ARC

THESIS 2023

ADVISOR: MATTHEW AU

Cyphered Threads: On Weaving and Computation

Edited by Charite Carballo

This book results from the Cyphered Threads thesis project carried out between January 2023 and September 2023 at the Southern California Institute of Architecture and is published in conjunction with the exhibition titled Cyphered Threads, on view at the Southern California Institute of Architecture from September 8 through Septmeber 13, 2023.

This publication was kindly supported by Xiomara Delgado and Juan Carballo

2023 Charite Carballo and contributers

Published by Publishing under an exclusive license to publish. Some rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrival system, or transmitted.

table_of_contents = {

“words”: [“pg. 4”, “pg. 5”],

“fundamental language”: [“pg. 6”, “pg. 7”]

“declarations”: [“pg. 8”, “pg. 9”, “pg. 10”, “pg. 11”, “pg. 12”, “pg. 13”, “pg. 14”, “pg. 15”, “pg. 16”, “pg. 17”, “pg. 18”, “pg. 19”],

“statements”: [“pg. 20”, “pg. 21”, “pg. 22”, “pg. 23”, “pg. 24”, “pg. 25”, “pg. 26”, “pg. 27”],

“expressions”: [“pg. 28”, “pg. 29”, “pg. 30”, “pg. 31”, “pg. 32”, “pg. 33”],

“composites”: [“pg. 34”, “pg. 35”, “pg. 36”, “pg. 37”, “pg. 38”, “pg. 39, “pg. 40”, “pg. 41”]

“programming language”: [“pg. 42”, “pg. 43”, “pg. 44”, “pg. 45”, “pg. 46”, “pg. 47”]

“programming language”: [“pg. 42”, “pg. 43”, “pg. 44”, “pg. 45”, “pg. 46”, “pg. 47”] }

# Print table of contents print(“Table of Contents:\n”) for category, items in table_of_contents.items(): print(category.capitalize() + “:”) for item in items: print(“- “ + item) print()

Thesis Statement

A cipher is a system of encrypting and decrypting data. It is also an act of gathering and practicing craft.

Cyphered threads aims to relink craft and computation as a means to store the unreported data of invisible labor in technology. It seeks to distribute these accounts through the use of woven patterns and community ritual. The project intends to address the role of craft as an elevated art, architecture, and technology, while speaking to the notion of the unseen in regards to information and labor. Through the collection of inconspicuous cyphered surfaces and the creation of encoded environments, narratives will be encrypted to serve as a living record for a weaving collective.

Our transition from weaving to coding signifies that a pattern acts as a means to store information. Through this tracking of warp and weft patterns were translated to punch cards that gave way to the modern computer. History omits the mention of Ada Lovelace, a woman, who largely participated in the creation of this machine. Textile technology is often referred to as “women’s work”, specifically in the case of the Bauhaus. In truth it is the fundamental blueprint for today’s technology. This thesis intends to disrupt the bias of textiles as decoration and to instead understand it as a tool to code, remember, and communicate.

The project will adopt the methods of codification from subverted textile tech-

nologies, specifically their ability to keep records for the community and store narratives. Patterns inherently hold associations through their attributed symbolism, and intonation. We can consider the basket weave to mean balance and duality or the Quipu knots to represent a certain numerical digit. To the untrained eye the textile is perceived as an inconspicuous object. Those in the know are able to decipher the code hiding in plain sight. Thread and colors conceal and filter these ciphers to create a smart textile.

The syntax is integral towards the dissemination of the visual language along with a series of grasshopper scripts that are used to create the pattern, loom, and instruction. This new material system intends to cultivate the need to congregate through the use of a new loom that receives and deploys the data. The gesture of the hand as a weaver and encrypter further informs the textiles meaning. This slow take of encryption and production is more valuable because it is sustainable, confidential, and identifiable. Material is understood as information and accounts for its labor, time, and meaning.

syntax = [ “Abundance”, “above”, “across”, “adeptness”, “addition”, “ahead”, “aiding”, “all over”, “along”, “announce“, “ascension”, “assisting”, “authority”, “Beyond”, “black and white”, “bloom”, “beside”, “black-and-white”, “buoyancy”, “Cadence”, “clumsy”, “company”, “conquest“, “containing”, “control”, “covering”, “crossways”, “cultivate” ,“Dance”, “delicate”, “detecting”, “detection”, “detect”, “descension”, “directing”, “direct”, “discover”, “disperse“, “division“, “drifting”, “drift”, “during”, “Elegance”, “elevating”, “entanglement“, “exceeding”, “expand”, “expansion”, “Float”, “four”, “Glide”, “good and evil”, “greater than”, “growing”, “Heighten”, “here and there”, “hop”, “Influencing”, “influence”, “interval”, “Lustrous”, “luxurious”, “location”, “leap”, “lev-

el”, “locality”, “Meander”, “money“, “movement”, “Navigate”, “nine“, “nuanced”, “One”, “optimization”, “opulence”, “Performance”, “pending”, “promoting”, “progression”, “Ranking”, “receiving”, “regarding”, “refinement”, “reproduce”, “reputation”, “resourceful”, “rest”, “radiant”, “remote”, “Seven”, “six”, “site”, “stability”, “starting”, “station”, “stretching”, “subtlety”, “scared and profane”, “search”, “spanning”, “sporadic“, “status”, “streak“, “stream”, “stop”, “storing”, “structural”, “sophistication”, “swim”, “superior”, “Three”, “to break”, “to find”, “to search”, “to store”, “two”, “Under”, “unstable”, “Vault”, “Wealth”, “white”, “Ying-yang”, “Zero”

] print(words)

FUNDAMENTAL LANGUAGE

Our Transition from weaving to coding signifies that a pattern acts as a means to store data. Through this tracking of warp and weft rectilinear figures are produced. This

binary system is rich in significance and intonation. The syntax intends to collect these base patterns and define their qualities.

# Weaving pattern declaration pattern = [ [1, 0, 1, 0], [0, 1, 0, 1], [1, 0, 1, 0], [0, 1, 0, 1]

DECLARATIONS

In coding, a declaration refers to the act of introducing a variable, constant, function, or other programming entity with a specified name and data type. Weaving patterns have the ability to contain established data and associations. Throughout history these attributed signifier can denote the status, culture, and wealth of an individual. The weaving pattern provides the structure and characteristics of the design to create a textile based off of defined data.

001

THE PLAIN WEAVE

002 DRAFT NOTATION DRAFT NOTATION

balance, duality, good and evil

[1, 0],

[0, 1],

contain, seat, control, to store

[1, 1, 0, 0],

[1, 1, 0, 0],

[0, 0, 1, 1],

[0, 0, 1, 1],

003

004

THE RIB WEAVE (warp)

DIAGRAM DIAGRAM DRAFT NOTATION DRAFT NOTATION

swim, float, glide, drift

[1, 1, 0, 0], [0, 0, 1, 1],

grow, heighten, stretch

005

006

THE RIB WEAVE (warp irregular)

DIAGRAM DIAGRAM DRAFT NOTATION DRAFT NOTATION

to break, interval, gap, rest, stop

[1, 1, 1, 0],

[0, 0, 0, 1],

hop, skip, vault, start, dance

007

THE MATT WEAVE (regular)

stability, structural, expand

[1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],

[1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],

[1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],

[0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1],

[0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1],

[0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1],

008

DRAFT NOTATION

subtlety

[1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],

[1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],

[1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],

[0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1],

[0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1],

[0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1],

[0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1],

009

010

THE SATIN WEAVE (warp)

flexibility, to search

[0, 1, 1, 1, 1],

[1, 1, 1, 0, 1],

[1, 0, 1, 1, 1],

[1, 1, 1, 1, 0],

[1, 1, 0, 1, 1],

to find, discover, detect

[1, 0, 0, 0, 0],

[0, 0, 0, 1, 0],

[0, 1, 0, 0, 0],

[0, 0, 0, 0, 1],

[0, 0, 1, 0, 0],

DIAGRAM

DIAGRAM

011

012

THE LEFT HAND TWILL WEAVE

DIAGRAM DIAGRAM DRAFT NOTATION DRAFT NOTATION

ascension, movement, unstable

[0, 1, 1],

[1, 1, 0], [1, 0, 1],

descension, movement

[0, 1, 1],

013

THE RIGHT HAND TWILL WEAVE (warp)

014

THE LEFT HAND TWILL WEAVE (warp)

superiority, dominance,

[1, 0, 0],

[0, 0, 1],

[0, 1, 0],

delicate, nuanced, understated

[1, 0, 0],

[0, 1, 0],

[0, 0, 1],

015

THE RIGHT HAND SATEEN WEAVE

THE LEFT HAND SATEEN WEAVE

opulence, luxury, abundance

[0, 1, 1, 1],

[1, 1, 1, 0],

[1, 1, 0, 1],

[1, 0, 1, 1],

lustrous, radiant

[1, 0, 1, 1],

[1, 1, 0, 1],

[1, 1, 1, 0],

[0, 1, 1, 1],

THE RIGHT HAND SATEEN WEAVE (warp)

THE LEFT HAND SATEEN WEAVE (warp)

dexterity, adeptness, agility

[1, 0, 0, 0],

[0, 0, 0, 1],

[0, 0, 1, 0],

[0, 1, 0, 0],

clumsy [0, 1, 0, 0], [0, 0, 1, 0], [0, 0, 0, 1], [1, 0, 0, 0],

019

020

ROYAL OXFORD WEAVE

DRAFT NOTATION DRAFT NOTATION

money, wealth, status

[1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1],

[1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1],

[1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1],

[1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],

[0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],

[0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1],

[0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],

[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0],

refinement, elegance

[1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0],

[0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1],

[0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1],

[1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0],

[1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0],

[0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1],

021

022

THE HERRINGBONE WEAVE

DIAGRAM DIAGRAM DRAFT NOTATION DRAFT NOTATION

direct , location, site, locality

[0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1],

[0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0],

[1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0],

[1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1],

status, elegance, ranking, level

[0, 0, 1, 1],

[1, 0, 0, 1],

[1, 1, 0, 0],

# Statement weaving pattern representation pattern = [ “print(‘Hello, world!’)”, “x = 5”, “result = a + b”, “if condition:”, “ do_something()”

STATEMENTS

In coding, a statement typically refers to a line of code that performs a specific action or operation. In weaving interlacing is used to manipulate the rhythm of the thread. This can cause a separation of the pattern or material.

along, ahead, beside, in company

002

TWISTED LOOPING

during, pending, spanning

above, greater than, exceeding, beyond under, receiving, in the process of

toward, regarding, about, promoting, assisting

across, covering, crossway

beyond, past

SECTIONAL WEFTS TURNED AROUND THE SAME WARP THREADS

around, everywhere, throughout, all over, here and there

# Quipu-inspired expression

red = 3

blue = 7

green = 5

total = red + blue - green

EXPRESSIONS

In coding, an expression is a combination of variables, values, operators, and/or function calls that can be evaluated to produce a result. Quipu’s is an early South American accounting device. They are a knot based numeric system that holds data/records regarding taxes, census, calendar and military info.

COMPOSITES

Compositing base weaving structures is a way to build articulation. Layering these markings begins to broaden their visual output and significance. An encrypted lan-

guage is formed as a sequence of patterns, interlacing, and knots are stringed together to store information.

PROGRAMING LANGUAGE

[0, 1, 1, 1], [1, 1, 1, 0], [1, 1, 0, 1], [1, 0, 1, 1]

pattern = [ ] target_words = [“reproduce”, “ascension”, “movement”, “unstable”, “descension”]

found_words = [] for word in words: if word in target_words:

found_words.append(word) print(“Found words:”) for word in found_words: print(word)

pattern = [ ] target_words = [“direct”, “location”, “site”, “locality”, “stability, “structural”, “expand”, “cadence”]

found_words = [] for word in words:

if word in target_words: found_words.append(word)

print(“Found words:”) for word in found_words:

THE CONTENTS IN THIS ISSUE ARE STILL IN DEVELOPMENT.