Textiles as Tech, Science, Math, Culture... or Civilization
"The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they're indistinguishable from it." That quote from computer scientist Mark Weiser is from a 1991 paper where he outlined the vision of ubiquitous computing; he also referenced "seamlessness" -- we just can't get away from textile metaphors! We catch airline "shuttles", we "weave" through traffic, we follow comment "threads”... The metaphors are as ubiquitous and abundant and threaded throughout our lives as the textiles -- and computing -- all around us.
The story of textiles is in fact the history of technology and science -- across all kinds of fields, from biology to chemistry -- of commerce (and management, measurement, machines) -- but most of all, of civilization itself. That's what the new book, The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World is all about: It is in fact a story of innovation across time and place, of human ingenuity... which is also the theme of the a16z Podcast, and of this inaugural book episode with author Virginia Postrel in conversation with Sonal Chokshi.
Their discussion both dives deep, and lightly dips, into a wide range of topics, covering: fabrics from the genetics of cotton to the supply chain of silk (including early machines, early management techniques, maestra and notions of expertise); the storage and transmission of knowledge, both explicit and tacit -- including artifacts and manuals to notation and measures and mathematics; NASA’s space program, knitting and AI, and the environmental impact of dyes. They also discuss the what and the why -- really, the warp and the weft of this episode! -- of how innovation happens, including the demographics and images involved. And finally, they cover the origin, evolution, and meaning of kente cloth (as well as other patterns) in Ghana and beyond... But the story of textiles is not just a story of one culture or many: it is a universally human story, woven from countless threads.
links & other articles mentioned in this episode:YouTube & Instagram from author, featuring images cited among othersThe Computer for the 21st Century, Scientific American, 1991Every topological surface can be knit: a proof, Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, 2009How an AI took over the an adult knitting community, The Atlantic, 2018RijksmuseumIn Ghana, pandemic inspires new fabrics, Christian Science Monitor 2020Welcome to the new world civilization, Reason, 2020image: © Sarah-Marie Belcastro / courtesy Virginia Postrel
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