Flowers & Leaves 4: Ader Lovelace: Queen of the Engines 1999

Ada: Queen of the Engines and other virtual webs

I have long been interested in myths and stories that deal directly or indirectly with weaving. Myths give shape to our notions of the past, present and future. Ada, who died of cancer at 32, might enjoy her new seat and virtual life and meet the ancient weavers of Fates, where together they now use computers to weave the web of life. The Fates still weave with Ada's help on ancient looms and computers...... In this way Ada continues my long-term involvement with historical and mythic weavers, which started with Penelope and Arachne.

"The analytical engine weaves algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves." is a quote by Ada Lovelace which started this current series Jacquard woven works. Similar ideas find their place in the web project entitled: "To Weave a Virtual Web" or "the Empress' New Clothing": An Internet project exploring textiles as metaphor.'

Ada Lovelace/Byron was educated in mathematics and collaborated with Charles Babbage, who invented the 'Analytical Engine' in 1843. It never quite worked, but contained the operating principles on which the computer was later built. Ada translated a text by Manabrea about this calculating engine and her notes, which took up more space than the original text, contained the first instances of written software. The Analytical Engine used a process that was derived from the Jacquard loom with its use of punched cards to store and process information. The Jacquard loom was developed specifically due to the demand of weavings with representational imagery, influenced by fabrics brought back to Europe from Asia during the 18th century. These motifs feature mainly elaborate floral designs and thus provide an excellent forum for reinvesting patterning, and imagery composed of flowers and leaves with new meanings.

Weaving goes high-tech again (as during the industrial revolution) blurring meanings and shifting boundaries between nature and technology, weaving and culture, as well as assigned gender roles. Cyborg women weave translucent thought into sturdy cloth and with Arachne still defy the gods.
The woven pieces in the exhibition were created in Photoshop from found sources and then translated into Pointarré software and finally woven by hand on a computer assisted Jacquard loom at the Centre de Textile Contemporain de Montréal. Many of my ideas about the computer and weaving connection come from Sadie Plant's essay: The Future Loom: Weaving Women and Cybernetics' and her book Zeros and Ones and my ideas about women, nature and cyborgs are informed by Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto and other texts.

My web site "To Weave a Virtual Web" or "the Empress' New Clothing": An Internet project exploring textiles as metaphor' at: <http://www.capcollege.bc.ca/dept/textile/> includes myths, historical and contemporary quotes, metaphors and stories that explore aspects of textiles either in fiction or as a personal and lived experience. Nature weaves a digital dream into the text and Philomela has her own web page now. Webs are non-linear connections of threads and 'The WWW' is quite a chaotic network of ideas, where each viewer can create a different fabric to suit individual interests. Most of the information listed in my web page, has been collected while doing research for various published essays, but instead of placing them in a carefully constructed sequence I can simply float them into what is often called a 'virtual space' but which in reality is a social environment. Hypertext which builds web pages allows the compilation of thoughts, images, facts and ideas to be used and connected without following the thread of a carefully constructed argument. It can be quite a tangled web, rather than a well designed fabric.

History has been shown to look quite different from various vantage points. I propose to 'unravel history' just like an old sweater and hope the threads will be woven together in many new patterns in order 'to spin a tale' or 'to weave a web of intrigue' or maybe 'to knit a community together'.

Ruth Scheuing, 2000