PENELOPE: Looms in Motion - online exhibition archive
Creators: name: Harlizius-Klück, Ellen
name: Mamidipudi, Annapurna
name: Fanfani, Giovanni
name: Griffiths, David
name: McLean, Alex
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: weaving

description: <strong>Looms in Motion</strong> An archive of the website and video media for the online Looms-in-Motion event, launching in November 2021 near the culmination of the European Research Council Horizon 2020 PENELOPE project. Planned as a combination of exhibition and laboratory for the autumn 2021, the idea of the PENELOPE team was to present looms from Laos and India, from Ancient Greece and contemporary Europe in operation by their weavers in order to demonstrate the binary and algorithmic character of weaving. However, the Corona Pandemic forced us to change our media and transform our laboratory in an online event: this is looms-in-motion.eu. The <em>PENELOPE</em> project builds on the hypothesis that there was a significant but tacit contribution of textile technology involved in the advent of science in ancient Greece. The philosopher and sociologist of science Bruno Latour recently claimed that technologies require an original mode of existence that accounts for their particular form of detour. We propose the technological labyrinth of threads in weaving as a paradigm for this mode. In contrast to the well-known but insufficient idea of hylemorphism (a form/idea applied to matter) we suggest the concept of histomorphism (pointing to histos, the loom in Greek) that enables to describe the integration of various levels and elements that are included in each and every technology, especially the digital ones. For more information, visit our Blog at https://penelope.hypotheses.org. Files included in this archive: <strong>looms-in-motion-website.zip</strong> The looms-in-motion.eu website, representing the online exhibition, including the videos listed below. This website will be retired in November 2023, and is archived here for offline browsing and for longer term reference. Please extract the files to a folder, and open index.html in your web browser. <strong>Looms In Motion - a PENELOPE project.mp4</strong> Also available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsriO7Dbwj8 Video trailer for the Looms in Motion online event. See the website for the video legend. <strong>Ulaṭbānsi Zigzagging.mp4</strong> Also available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ObYqWIkyM How to speak without words?<br> How to follow zigzags of the shuttle?<br> How to tune a loom?<br> How to seek the teacher inside yourself? Weaving is known but not spoken. Kabir, the weaver/poet/saint from the 15th century turned language on its head, to point to this impossibility of speaking weaving, which he also connected to the search for the spiritual within oneself. This film zig zags between the weaving and musical practice of weavers in Kachchh, Gujarat, and the one lone weaver in Chirala, Andhra Pradesh, who holds the memory of a time before the Jacquard loom robbed them of the language of handloom. See the website for video legend. <strong>The Ancient Digital Loom I.mp4</strong><br> <strong>The Ancient Digital Loom II.mp4</strong> Also available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f63zB42NqIQ / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdpRRLngbXM In March 2021, Pauline Diebenbusch from the Friends of the Deutsches Museum conducted two interviews with Ellen Harlizius-Klück on the PENELOPE project and its idea of a digital loom. The interviews are in German, but we provide English subtitles here, provided as separate files in .srt format. <strong>CODE • WEAVE • MUSIC.mp4</strong> Also available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR1o_IytPl8 Alex McLean chats with Julin Lee about his work in the PENELOPE project over the last four years, bringing together coding, weaving and making music with algorithms. <strong>Making connections: Coding, weaving and flamenco.mp4</strong> Also available on youtube: https://youtu.be/5Am4BVBhLOk As part of the city-wide Sheffield Showcase weekend across the city in September 2021, live coding musician Lucy Cheesman, researcher/choreographer Rosa Cisneros and researcher/musician Alex McLean collaborated on a drop-in family workshop held at Pitsmoor Scout Hut in Sheffield UK. We explored different kinds of patterns with participants, focussing on the underlying algorithmic structures. In particular we explored weaving patterns using a semi-automated handloom driven by a simple programming language, sonic patterns using the live coding environment TidalCycles, and flamenco patterns using notations and of course our bodies! Film produced by Reel Master Production - https://www.reelmasterproduction.uk