Cyphered Threads

Encryption, Textile, Ritual, Material, Information, Community

A cipher is a system of encrypting and decrypting data. It is also an act of gathering and practicing craft.

Cyphered threads aims to relink craft and computation as a means to store the unreported data of invisible labor in technology. It seeks to distribute these accounts through the use of woven patterns and community ritual. The project intends to address the role of craft as an elevated art, architecture, and technology, while speaking to the notion of the unseen in regards to information and labor. Through the collection of inconspicuous cyphered surfaces and the creation of encoded environments, narratives will be encrypted to serve as a living record for a weaving collective.

Our transition from weaving to coding signifies that a pattern acts as a means to store information. Through this tracking of warp and weft patterns were translated to punch cards that gave way to the modern computer. History omits the mention of Ada Lovelace, a woman, who largely participated in the creation of this machine. Textile technology is often referred to as "women's work", specifically in the case of the Bauhaus. In truth it is the fundamental blueprint for today's technology. This thesis intends to disrupt the bias of textiles as decoration and to instead understand it as a tool to code, remember, and communicate.

The project will adopt the methods of codification from subverted textile technologies, specifically their ability to keep records for the community and store narratives. Patterns inherently hold associations through their attributed symbolism, and intonation. We can consider the basket weave to mean balance and duality or the Quipu knots to represent a certain numerical digit. To the untrained eye the textile is perceived as an inconspicuous object. Those in the know are able to decipher the code hiding in plain sight. Thread and colors conceal and filter these ciphers to create a smart textile.

The syntax is integral towards the dissemination of the visual language along with a series of grasshopper scripts that are used to create the pattern, loom, and instruction. This new material system intends to cultivate the need to congregate through the use of a new loom that receives and deploys the data. The gesture of the hand as a weaver and encrypter further informs the textiles meaning. This slow take of encryption and production is more valuable because it is sustainable, confidential, and identifiable. Material is understood as information and accounts for its labor, time, and meaning.

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Charite Carballo

Cyphered Threads

Encryption, Textile, Ritual, Material, Information, Community