Distributed intelligence: Silk weaving and the Jacquard Mechanism

Abstract

Background: Launched in the early 1800s in Lyon, France, the Jacquard mechanism is often seen as the precursor for today's software systems, enabling greater productivity in the automated industrial production of woven fabric. Analysis: Based on archival research, this media archaeology article argues that the Jacquard mechanism enabled a new form of textile-based digital imaging. Lyon weavers used the mechanism to augment human imagination and strive for increased complexity in their quest for making textiles compete with the dominant media of the time (etching, printing, painting) and with the new medium of photography. Conclusion and implications: Such augmentation of human intelligence and imagination brings to light the possibility for alternative relationships between human bodies and brains and digital systems based on collaboration rather than subsumption.