Text and Commentary (1976)

Text and Commentary consists of five woven texts, five channels of video on five monitors (placed in a horizontal line in a freestanding wall), five weaver's notations of parts of the programmed pattern of each weave and pictographic notations which represent a full visual score of the 35 minute work. All of these provide varying perspectives of the same information in a variety of scales and media, and translated into different systems of composition. Among other concerns the work explores the non-decorative meaning and numerical basis of abstract pattern. As the first computer on earth in that it programs pattern, the loom is my tool for thinking about ancient and modern technologies, and for programming multiple channels like threads on a loom to create a non-verbal narrative. The video portion of the work was recorded with a camera hanging from the ceiling at varying distances as I wove and recorded simultaneously. The five weaving texts were programmed with slight pattern changes as you read from left to right. The work moves from a semi-documentary, rhythmic view of the weaving process to a very detailed magnification of the cloth. Pattern itself becomes the surface of the video screen as it is built up line by line before the viewers' eyes analogous to the way the video image itself is constructed of lines comprising fields and frames. Near the end of the video portion each weave faces itself being scanned on the monitor placed opposite it. The viewer sits on a bench between the woven text and video commentary. The drawings illustrate the numerical basis of the woven pattern; the pictographic notations illustrate the time structure of the video. These pictograms were also essential in construction of the work as I sat on the floor with small drawings of each of the recorded images and placed them in an order, horizontally and vertically, to become the basic editing score for the video.