Code Crafting: The Influence of Textiles on Computing, Fall 2021

LCOD 2232, Section A (CRN: 11944)

Current instructor: Rory Solomon, solomonr@newschool.edu; formerly Ursula Wolz.

Wednesday, 12:10-2:50pm, Fanton Hall 72 5th Street, Room: 713

Office hours

Friday 11am-2pm, 65 West 11th Street, room B061; and by appointment — you may click here to schedule.

Course Description

Textile production influenced the industrial revolution causing social upheaval. Textile craft is also at the root of modern computer programming that has dramatically influenced the Information Age. This course provides a liberal arts perspective on the fundamental concepts of programming and computer architecture, exploring the premise that computer science is derived from textile craft production. Students will learn how crochet patterns provide models for understanding computer code, and how punch card techniques grew out of weaving and knitting. Students will practice coding with programmable embroidery machines. Students will also read and discuss selected works on the historical and artistic perspectives of computer science in society related to modern textile production.

Syllabus

You can find the course syllabus here.

Links & Resources

• Google Drive with Professor Wolz's class resources
• Reading response document
• All stitch usernames for our class

Weekly class notes

• Week 7 (Oct 13): Code blocks & the history of craft and computation. (Includes a homework assignment.)
• Week 8 (Oct 20): Code block inputs & Lev Manovich's The Language of New Media. (Includes a homework assignment.)
• Week 9 (Oct 27): Randomized variable values, more Manovich, and glitch. (Includes a homework assignment.)
• Week 10 (Nov 3): Today we worked on the Brother PE 770 embroidery machine, and watched this video by Anton Savov & Thomas Wenzel of Technical University Darmstadt: "What is Computational Design? And 9 Concepts Related to It"
• Week 11 (Nov 10): Importing data with lists. (Includes a homework assignment.)

Final grade breakdown

The following is adapted from the grade breakdown in the original course syllabus, modified for the realities of what we were able to cover this semester.

Weekly homework assignments	60%
Reading responses (2)	10%
Participation & attendance	10%
Final project	20%

Explanation of gradable materials

Weekly homework assignments. For full credit on this, you should make sure that your TurtleStitch username is clearly linked in the Google Doc list of usernames, and that when clicking through to your TurtleStich profile, you have four, clearly-labeled TurtleStich sketches: one for each of the weekly class notes listed above. Again, please make sure that they are clearly labeled as "Week 7", "Week 8", etc. For full credit on your homework, you must produce at least one sample embroidered experiment from at least one of these tutorials — any one of your choosing.

Reading responses. For full credit on this piece, you should make sure that you have a reading response for both texts that we looked at during the recent weeks of the semester. If you have not completed this yet and still wish to, I am still willing to give partial credit for any late posts. Reminder that you can find the readings in the Week 7 and Week 8 class notes linked above.

Participation & attendance. This grade will be determined subjectively based on your active participation in the class over the last 7 weeks. Excessive absences will potentially lower this grade, but I am happy to take into account COVID- or binx-related absences. This has been a difficult semester for us all.

Final project. This will be evaluated based on whether you have completed all components of the assignment prompt on time and presented your work to the class on the last day.

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