Woven smart structures
Weaving plays a foundational role in our world. But until now, research into weave structures has persistently overlooked a vital – even integral – element: the negative. Semantically, negative includes ‘that which denies’ (adj.), ‘absence, nonexistence’ (n.) and ‘to reject’ (v.) – ultimately, something ‘which is not’. This leads me to observe that its potential material quality has been denied attention.
In this practice-led thesis, I aim to explore the negative in and of weaving as a material entity rather than an absence. By ‘negative’, I mean the empty space neighbouring vertical and horizontal threads. Research combines conceptual and mechanical insights into the negative as the nucleus of a structure, in order to enable new understandings and geometries to be drawn. Building upon performative new materialist thinking and practices, the study interrogates our comprehension and use of the negative, and aims to re-present and re-conceptualise weave architectures to open new structural potentials.
Woven cloth construction relies on the intertwining of verticals and horizontals, respectively known as warp and weft. As such, the practice of weaving might be defined by its organised, hierarchical spatial structuring. Their existence is only made possible by the co-occupancy of the so-called positive (grid) and negative (hole). Woven textiles embody a disturbing and unintelligible conflict. Fundamentally antithetical, they are simultaneously rigid and fluid, ordered and chaotic, insofar that they encompass a rebellion against “the dream of symmetry” (Pajaczkowska, 2005) that industrialisation has desperately clung to ever since the eighteenth century.
Currently, when experimenting creatively with textile elements, weavers rely solely on traditional Euclidean geometry for cloth construction. This results in total dependence on machine specifications, a constraint which clearly prevents the ideation of potential new structures (Tandler, 2016). In fact, pioneer weaver Anni Albers (1946) points out that “the technique of weaving” has been “hardly touched by our modern age”. Although it isn’t known how weaving actually began, the idea of it emerged long before the machine (Broudy, 1979). This pivotal observation opens a potential window to imagine new weave architectures, away from the loom.
In The Question Concerning Technology, Heidegger (1954) poetically presents his ‘logic of technē’, i.e. technology, as entirely separate to the machine itself, insofar as the essence of a craft doesn’t depend on the mechanical. My thesis builds on this idea to explore how stepping away from known principles of weaving, current structure visualisations, and required tools, might shape new ways of understanding structuring.
Unlike in fields such as mathematics, philosophy and architecture, research into negative space in weaving has been mainly confined to aesthetic attributes – e.g. denting – or a mechanical property – e.g. negative Poisson ratio of auxetic fabrics –. Consequently and thus far, negative space has only been researched as an element of a structured system, not as its foundation.
In order to explore the concept of the negative as ‘not-something’ as opposed to ‘nothing’, the research will reflect on Thomas Nail’s (2018) study of Lucretius’s thesis on the question of matter: “it is [...] a doing” (Barad, 2007) and it is “what it does or how it moves” (Nail, 2019). This will support the investigation into the negative as an agential and performative system within structuring as a whole.
The study aims to thoroughly capture the negative, through the amalgamation of theory and practice. The negative reimagines the woven ‘hole’ as a structure unit, which is inherent to the existence of the whole (woven cloth). I will build upon Barad’s neologism of ‘intra-actions’, described as the dynamic shifts occurring in-between ‘things’, in order to comprehend the role of the hole as a ceaselessly size/shape-shifting entity. Drawing on the notions of infinity, limits and continuity in matter (Lucretius, 54 B.C.), chaos theory (Lorenz, 1963) and fractal geometry (Mandelbrot, 1975) practice will be informed by the “idea of pattern without regularity” (Culling, 1988).
The thesis positions performative new materialist reflections (Gamble, Hanan & Nail, 2019), theory of entanglement (Barad, 2007; Kirby, 2017) and the question of emergence (Hartmann, 1909; Hegel, 1910; Heidegger, 1962; Golding, 2020) in dialogue with the practice of weaving. Crucial objectives include challenging the ways weave structures are creatively thought and drawn, and shedding light on a potential new way to see a structured system as a whole. To do so, the research asks:
(i) Can a conceptual and technical investigation of the negative as a material entity inform a new understanding of weave geometries that could open new structuring possibilities?
(ii) How could combining practice-led inquiry and theoretical findings challenge the ways in which the negative as a structure unit repeats itself?
The research will adopt a bricolage methodology (Kincheloe, 2001) using its interdisciplinarity to alter and dissolve disciplinary boundaries. This includes combining theoretical and practical frameworks from weaving (technical structure construction), architecture, mathematics (fractal geometry) and philosophy (new materialism). For De Certeau (1984), bricolage is “the poetic making do”, that which lends itself well to unite poetic and praxis. Practice is crucial to the research, and will lead the inquiry to build on existing theories and in turn, inform critical thinking. Simultaneously, a speculative design approach (Dunne & Raby, 2013) will provide ways of imagining original possibilities to evaluate the research methods. These include:
(1) drawing, photography, projection of woven samples – physical observations of the negative under various resolutions (0, 1, 2D).
(2) Nondestructive techniques (X-ray, ultrasonics/thermography), 3D printing and modelling – digital visualisation / cross-sectional imaging.
(3) weaving – structures and techniques on dobby and Jacquard looms including
plain weave: foundation of all structures
leno: stretchability and structural specificity
double-cloth: layers are woven simultaneously
damask: complex in-woven design.
(4) reflective narrative – note-taking and post-making creative reflective writing.
A multiple-case study design (Yin, 2018) will shape the blueprint of the research project. The methods will be used jointly across three case studies. These will focus on developing my understanding of the negative and testing my findings.
Firstly, the identification phase will manipulate and measure the negative under different resolutions (physically and digitally), using found fabrics sourced from the Warner Textile Archive and the Design Center Chelsea Harbour. This thorough body of work will be mapped to provide a visual sense of the meaning of the negative. Secondly, the experimental phase will cross-compare the new figuration of weave architectures to the ways others have documented structure construction. Finally, the testing phase will attempt to design and weave structures based on the negative space inquiry. This will question and challenge the idea of repeat on a mechanical level.
In the drive for efficiency, the craft of weaving has been entirely transformed to binary writing. Weavers have become a design tool as opposed to a creative agent, limiting their comprehension of cloth’s appearance and behaviours off-loom. By starting from the negative, this practice-led study uniquely addresses the urgent need for a new weave structure visualisation. Insights from the study could help shape a new textile language, one that could signal properties and qualify qualities of woven textiles prior to construction, reducing sampling waste during the design process. While this thesis doesn’t intend to impose a new way of designing woven textiles, it instead opens a window onto a new realm of thinking and making textiles intelligently, in which practice and theory play in unison.
