Exploring Structurelessness through Digital Weaving

In my project, I investigated what makes a weaving a weaving, when and how strings are considered woven. I wondered, how might I enhance and explore the playfulness of yarn through freeing it from the structure of typical woven textiles? Weavings are formed when many independent threads come together in construction, but the extent to which they are bound can vary. How might I use weaving, a practice typically driven by bringing together, as a practice also for driving apart and keeping separate, for destroying? Human-computer interaction (HCI) literature has much to say about unmaking, uncrafting, and the potentially emancipatory results that can come with these (https://dl.acm.org/doi/full/10.1145/3544548.3581412). Recent HCI work has also contended that refusal to engage can be a form of design (https://dl.acm.org/doi/full/10.1145/3630107). At the same time, there are thriving artistic and research communities exploring experimentation in weaving structures (e.g., https://unstable.design/experimental-weaving-talks/). I wanted to examine the lines between destruction, unmaking, and uncrafting on one hand and creativity and creation on the other; through weaving, I questioned, examined, and experimented with the nebulous lines at these boundaries to begin to better understand how they can be represented in textile and what they mean to me.

To explore my research questions, I experimented with Jacquard loom weaving through Praxis Fiber Workshop’s Digital Weaving Lab Residency. I used my time at this residency to begin to understand how different weave structures can emphasize parts of a weaving that are integrated or separated in atypical ways. For instance, the idea of deflected double weave structures unconstrained by repetition and patterns fascinates me, as it frees the structure’s unwoven yarn sections to be much larger than they might typically be, so I explored how woven and unwoven sections alongside each other can combine to change the dynamism of a piece of cloth, how they can result in a textile that is both made and unmade simultaneously. I also explored how various weaving structures can be messed with and broken, especially when freed from certain structure and pattern constraints, to result in a dynamic textile that is simultaneously made and unmade, together and falling apart.

This project was made possible with support from Frank-Ratchy Further Fund Grant #2025-059. Additional images available here.