Weaving Codes - Coding Weaves

In this project we investigate pattern from multiple perspectives of weaving, music, mathematics and computer programming. We do this by connecting the field of Live Coding, with that of the mathematics of weaves, realising a wide range of impacts including in education, public understanding of the basis of mathematics in craft, and music technology.

What are the historical and theoretical points at which the practice of weaving and computer programming connect? What insights can be gained if we bring these activities together, through live shared experience? How do digital technologies influence our ways of making, and what new digital technologies can we create to explore their social use in creative collaboration?

Our research challenge is to unravel industrial and contemporary technological developments in weaving and computer programming, in order to expose and challenge assumptions, and make the Human processes involved visible. In particular, to explore and communicate the nature of mathematical thinking in ancient weaving, and creative thinking in contemporary computer programming, bringing key contributions to discussion of making in the humanities.

Our team will take a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach, combining theoretical and technological developments with historical investigation and participatory action research in developing and exploring all of the above. Through this work, live coding research will be grounded in craft and developed in new social and pedagogic contexts, and research into the mathematics of weaving will be developed with key impacts realised in public understanding of ancient technologies.

Live coding is a creative approach to computer programming, which with the support of AHRC Digital Transformations research development funds, has in recent years become an established field in music technology research. By making the act of computer programming more public, live coders have been able to demonstrate how code can be worked creatively, as a kind of meta-material. This is typically put into practice for live music performance, where programmers are on stage, coding music live for an audience, in concert halls, or possibly in night clubs to an audience who are dancing to algorithms. The programmers' screens are generally projected, so that the audience is able to see the programmer actively defining musical patterns and sounds, while they hear the results.

The work of Ellen Harlizius-Klück approaches the difficult task of making some of the internal mathematical processes required for weaving on hand looms visible. Weaving can easily be dismissed as a manual, boring task but in practice using ancient looms is a difficult task with high cognitive load. Indeed, Harlizius-Klück has uncovered that the development of mathematics in ancient Greece frequently relied upon weaving metaphors. A further echo of this relation can be seen in the influence of the Jacquard Loom in the mechanical computers of Charles Babbage, and the metaphors drawn by his collaborator Ada Lovelace.

By connecting live coding with weaving we have the opportunity to explore how mathematical thinking can be exposed in activities which are generally thought of as solitary. We will explore this notion by creating a programming language designed for describing the complex patterned structures of woven threads, and using it to drive computer-controlled looms.

This is a cross-disciplinary project with diverse impacts at its core. We will focus on the following eight areas:

IMP1 Computing education - Putting ideas into practice in running workshops with children where we bring together pattern making with threads, together with pattern making with programming languages.

IMP2 Digital making - Demonstrating our ideas at maker events, including the MakerFaire in Newcastle, looking to expand the methods we develop in weaving to other craft activities.

IMP3 Museum communication - Working within museums to communicate the processes of pattern making with weaving, as a major amplification of Ellen Harlizius-Klück's work to new audiences.

IMP4 Weaving technology - Explore the potential of our work in bringing new creative technologists to the textile industry.

IMP5 Music technology - promoting live coding technology to the wider music technology community, through education, digital arts festivals and live performance.

IMP6 Diversity in technology - working with researchers in gender studies, and diverse workshop leaders, to find socially meaningful basis in which to encourage wider participation in live coding, as a possible pathway into wider programming activity.
IMP7 Inserting ancient digital crafts into the history of digital technologies - through our public activities, we will look to begin to change perception of the history of textiles, as a precursor to and inspiration for contemporary digital technologies.

IMP8 Open data - working with the Open Data Institute to explore the connection between live coding and live open data, and create collaborative hack event around archives of textile patterns.