Toward a Minor Tech: Kim
Traditional crafts that seem minor can make you empowered (working title)
Technology nowadays is characterized by a number of computer devices that we depend on, such as laptops, tablets, smartphones, smartwatches, etc. As the level of dependence that we have on these devices increases over time, it’s difficult to not think that we lose our agency over them. New designs are made to draw consumers to the latest technologies, making us overlook the risks of planned obsolescence. The black boxing of the devices prevents us from connecting and understanding them even when they apparently exhibit ‘user-friendly’ interface designs.
Working on a weaving handloom gives me an alternative engagement to our superficial, often elusive relation with the technology described above. Interestingly, the many hours of labour and energy required for me to finish a project on a loom is what makes me feel close and connected to the machine. The process is transparent to your eyes, and it makes you feel like you’re working together with the machine, not dependent on it. Traditional crafts and old devices such as weaving, and handlooms may seem peripheral, and minor compared to advanced devices and technological improvements made to increase our productivity and efficiency. However, hands-on engagement with crafts and old devices could be pedagogical, shedding a new light to our understanding of technology, offering an alternative relationship. In this essay, I reflect on my experience of working on a handloom and how it challenged my status quo relationship with technology.
But first, I recognize that much of the conversation around weaving looms in the history of technology is focused on how it informed the development of computers. Thus, I would like to start with a brief introduction to this history.
It is the Jacquard weaving loom that is referred to as one of the precursors of computing machinery. Invented in 1804, Jacquard loom dramatically simplified the complexity of the weaving activity, making it possible to make more complicated designs while also enhancing production speed. The core invention of the Jacquard loom was a mechanism that automated the use of a long series of interconnected punched cards which made it possible to encode more complex patterns into the operation of a loom. Although there was no actual computation performed using the cards, the invention is still considered an important step in the history of computer hardware. The idea of punched cards was later used by Charles Babbage in constructing the first mechanical computing device, the difference engine which was later developed into the analytical engine (Fernaeus, et al. 1594). Analytical engine embodied the basic elements that were finally realized in the computers built during World War II (Ceruzzi 4).
However, binary, computational logic has always been part of weaving before the invention of the Jacquard loom and its punched cards because to weave is to basically decide whether a warp thread is to be picked up or not. The Jacquard loom was simply an advanced loom technology from its precedents that replaced the human with mechanized punched cards to control the pattern information. (Harlizius-Klück 179) Computers and looms already process information in similar ways, and data in weaving can be represented in binary terms. Therefore, a 4-shaft loom can be thought of as 4-bit opcodes with different orderings, resulting in indirect pattern shifts.
Although the emphasis is mostly placed on aspects of computation and logic when referring to the loom, working on a weaving loom can also inform us a lot about physical, tangible forms of interaction with technology. Much of the discussion of interactions with technology, especially in the area of tangible interaction has turned towards phenomenology and incorporated concepts such as ready-at-hand and present-at-hand, the two ways of approaching the world, according to Heidegger (Fernaeus, et al. 1598). Present-at-hand refers to our theoretical apprehension of a world made up of objects where science begins. Ready-to-hand describes our practical relation to things that are handy or useful. Heidegger asserts that practice precedes theory, hence the ready-to-hand is prior to the present-at-hand. My primary encounter with the world is not theoretical, rather, I first apprehend the world practically as a world of things that are useful and handy (Critchley, “Being and Time, part 3; Being-in-the-world”). These concepts provide ways of understanding the use and perception of technological devices around us, let alone common physical objects such as a table, hammer, etc.
While I don’t argue that the physical properties of a loom or the tangible interaction with it immediately make it more conceptually graspable and comprehensible, working with more traditional, smaller-scale handlooms offered me a different experience that challenged my view on technological objects around me. Interacting with a handloom is not only about looking and manipulating the materials with hands and fingers, but also feeling the texture of materials in the hands, understanding and working with unique characters of different fibre. A handloom requires manually setting it up which can take hours if you’re a beginner and the design and engineering principles of the loom may not make sense immediately. You may also find passing each thread into the headles and then into the reed a bit tedious and time-consuming. However, when you finally see your pattern emerge and woven into the fabric within the structure you’ve set up for your loom, you will feel rewarded and even feel connected to the machine in an unexpected way. Your whole body interacting with the loom, throwing the shuttle across the warp, and controlling treadles and levers while seeing it all happening before your eyes gives you a sense of control and that you’re working with the machine, not dependent on it. This sparked a change in my view on how I engage with the technological environment around me. I’m constantly surrounded by and using multiple devices that fill my every day, but they would barely even emerge as ‘extended things’ that spark scientific inquiry in my mind. I believe this is because of multiple reasons; I am too accustomed to their presence, they’re tightly sealed in the black box that prevents me from having access to their inner workings and becoming curious about it, and/or I’m already overwhelmed or discouraged to get to know them because they look too complicated. Whatever the reason, I believe my detachment wouldn’t suffice either the present-at-hand or the ready-at-hand relationship with them.
My hands-on engagement with weaving looms brought me back into what Heidegger describes as Umwelt (environment), the world full of handy and useful things that relate together and that I’m part of, not cut off from it in some sort of ‘mind’ floating in distance (Critchley, “Being and Time, part 3; Being-in-the-world”). Gaining a new perspective and appreciation of the things around me through the older and smaller ways of knowing how things work made me feel empowered, rather than a minor being weighed down by big, complex tech knowledge. Many crafts and their technologies have a long history and as a result embody a great deal of knowledge and expertise, including cultural and historical knowledge as well as information about materials, tools and techniques. They invite you to the world of the common, average everyday experience of things full of surprises and wonder.
Work Cited
Fernaeus, Ylva & Jonsson, Martin & Tholander, Jakob. “Revisiting the Jacquard loom: Threads of history and current patterns in HCI.” Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – Proceedings, 2012, pp. 1593-1602.
Poague, Susan Aileen. Computer Design in the Handweaving Process. 1987. Iowa State University, MA dissertation.
Ceruzzi, Paul E. Computing: A Concise History. The MIT Press, 2012.
Harlizius-Klück, Ellen. “Weaving as Binary Art and the Algebra of Patterns.” Textile: Cloth and Culture, Volume 15, Issue 2, 2017, pp. 176-197.
Critchley, Simon. “Being and Time, part 3; Being-in-the-world.” The Guardian, 22 Jun. 2009,
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/22/heidegger-religion-philosophy