from jacquard’s loom (1801) to ada lovelace and the analytical machine (1837 – 1843) to ascii art (1966) and typographic grids to bookbinding as computational craft. enjoy a night of history, computation, and learn how to create a simple soft-bound book of chosen ascii art.

jaquard’s loom introduced the idea that a pattern could be encoded. the loom had punch cards that instructed the machine how to raise or lower warp threads, resulting in the first example of binary structure based on whether there was a hole or not in the card. this embedded mechanical pattern is where we see the first example of a stored program, thus making the loom the first compiler.

ada lovelace's notes says, “the analytical engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves,” and used this metaphorical language to compare computation to textile logic.

in 1964, kenneth knowlton publishes first ascii-based artwork using an IBM 7094 to convert photographs to images made up of characters and produces studies in perception i.

in this workshop, you will define the steps to create a softbound book made up of ascii art of your choosing or making. you will be given a layout in figma and learn how to print 3 signatures (folded groups of pages) using adobe acrobat. after printing, you will learn coptic, kettle, and link stitch—a set of operations yielding predictable, aesthetic structure—to create the spine of the book.

a book is an early database, a corpus of pages linked through sequence, index, and binding logic. yet, we will not be touching our keyboards at all for most of the night. bookbinding is slow, thoughtful, and tactile. come prepared for pleasant chatter with friends, snacks, and drinks. bring a story. relinquish yourself from typing, and instead weave your own ascii art softbound book.

agenda

– understand the throughline of history from the invention of the loom to bookbinding
– design and print a book layout of personal ascii art in figma and adobe acrobat
– handstitch together your own softbound book

schedule

– 7:00 – 7:30 — historical background and introduction to ascii art bookbinding process
– 7:30 – 8:00 — creating ascii art, making layout, printing pages
– 8:00 – 9:30 — stitch together softbound books

required materials

– a laptop or a sketchbook
– pens and/or pencils
– you can go completely low-tech if you want with this

alexa ann bonomo is an artist and scholar with a deep interest in methods of preservation, archiving, and worldbuilding. her creative work primarily lives on the internet and other ephemeral settings in the form of net art, real-time live performance visuals, creative writing, and other community-driven projects. some of her work has been exhibited and presented in le cube garges in paris, centre de cultura contemporània in barcelona, montreal conference centre in montreal, and the exploratorium and gray area in san francisco. alexa teaches at the university of san francisco in the art department and is the curator of underneath.study, a wayfaring learning + arts collective. along with other design and dev side projects, she spends her studio time crafting lore and researching motion capture for performance-based art in the world engines lab.