Textile looms and computers share a common history; Babbage used punch cards in his Difference Engine after seeing a Jacquard loom at work. This carpet by Richard Hutten is called “Playing With Tradition” and it plays on the historical relationship of looms and computers by looking exactly like a digital image that has been pixel-stretched. (Along similar lines, see this.) Hutton has designed furniture and other products for Droog and Sawaya and Moroni, among others, and this rug was designed for I+I‘s Strawberry Fields project. Some of the other pieces in that project are below, and at least two of them make use of computer imagery or computerized loom capabilities. This came to me via blprnt (resident digital expert and man about the studio, whose mom is also a weaver) via quasimondo via today and tomorrow.
I do wonder how traditional rug makers react on the first piece. — On the small picture, it is visible hung up with the stripes on top; which way is right?
It surprised me, too; first I did think it was a badly transferred picture.
I think there may be no “up” so they must have felt free to hang it either way. It’s interesting seeing it both ways. The rug definitely has the look of a pixel stretch but that’s neat because either end is a traditional rug pattern – the typical persian rug at one end, a typical striped rug at the other. It’s the join that creates the cognitive problem!