Textile (USA)

The elements of Eve Andrée Laramée’s design, which she created as the focal point of A Permutational Unfolding, her 1999 Exhibition at MIT’s List Visual Arts Center Gallery, present a rich visual network of information about the history of programmable computers. Joseph-Marie Jacquard is prominently featured in a jacket patterned with zeros and ones, as his punch-card controlled loom effectively introduced the binary code (warp up or warp down). The woman is Ada Lovelace (1816-52), an accomplished mathematician and close friend of British mathematician Charles Babbage (1791-1871). Babbage’s calculating machine, the “Analytical Engine” is generally acknowledged as the precursor to today’s computer technology. The duck is a diagram of the ingenious automaton created by Jacques Vaucanson (1709-82) in 1733, which actually ingested and digested grain and then defecated. The hand is a diagram of the prosthetic created by Ambroise Paré (1510-90) in 1564. Woven by a contemporary jacquard loom fed by a CAD weaving program, the textile itself evidences a technology continuum that spans almost two centuries.

Textile (USA); Designed by Eve Andrée Laramée; cotton, rayon, metallic; H x W: 242.6 x 141 cm (7 ft. 11 1/2 in. x 55 1/2 in.); Gift of Eve Andrée Laramée; 1999-28-1