Created by Berlin-based ATELIER-E (Christian Losert and Daniel Dalfovo), LOOM is an expansive light and sound installation comprised of phosphorescent threads that orchestrate a score of light, sound and darkness.
The audio-visual apparatus uses the preciseness and velocity of today’s computing possibilities, at the same time it refers to the still underlying core principle of the old weaving machine: a sequence of ONs and OFFs. A kinetic system spins them into a network of data, where each luminous point in space defines the location of a virtual particle.
The TextilWerk is surrounded by an aura of mechanical rhythms and excellence in craftsmanship. A fascinating journey through the history of the textile industry. From today’s perspective, the looms appear to us like artistic relics of a bygone era, whose mechanical details and solutions were masterfully devised. The yarns and textiles have disappeared, the machines are out of service, but the underlying principle of pattern generation – encoding and decoding – by means of binary punch cards, manifests itself to this day in the digital age.
A T E L I E R ‒ E
LOOM pays homage to the punch card system invented by Joseph Marie Jaquard. The weaving machines’ punch cards stored and replaced human craftsmanship and labour into a machine readable data format: One of the first signs of data driven beauty and authorship. The binary principle of the medium – the reduction of information to a series of two possible states – and it’s disruptive consequences have become the technological leitmotif of our accelerated world. The installation accompanies the current process of autonomous systems that leave predetermined solution spaces and reformulate our understanding of automation. At the same time, these systems re-evaluate the role of humans: from actors to observers.
Commissioned for the special exhibition hall at the TextilWerk Bocholt.
Project Page | A T E L I E R ‒ E
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