What do you think?
Rate this book
Thread Ripper
THREAD RIPPER er en hybrid af forfatter og billedkunstner Amalie Smith med fortællende prosa og noter, der kredser om vævning som en indgang til at forstå det digitale. I bogen følges en billedvæver, der arbejder på et digitalvævet billedtæppe i slutningen af 2010’erne. I den periode væver hun ikke bare et billedtæppe, hun væver også i livet, i kærligheden, i forbindelsen til sin omverden og i svaret på spørgsmålet, om hun vil sætte børn i verden.
THREAD RIPPER er en historie om nervevæv, plantevæv, om skærmenes billedvæv, kærlighedens drømmevæv, slægternes DNA-væv og telenettets strålevæv. Bogen optrævler og væver forbindelser mellem det analoge og det digitale, det lokale og det planetariske, det håndgribelige og det trådløse.
THREAD RIPPER er en historie om nervevæv, plantevæv, om skærmenes billedvæv, kærlighedens drømmevæv, slægternes DNA-væv og telenettets strålevæv. Bogen optrævler og væver forbindelser mellem det analoge og det digitale, det lokale og det planetariske, det håndgribelige og det trådløse.
224 pages, Paperback
First published September 23, 2020
About the author
Amalie Smith
16 books54 followersAmalie Smith er en dansk forfatter og billedkunstner. Hun tog afgang fra Forfatterskolen i 2009 og er masterstuderende på Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
December 11, 2022
Thread Ripper is a superb book from Lolli Editions and is Jennifer Russell's translation of Amalie Smith's Danish original. This is by happenstance the second book I read this week that takes its cue from the act of weaving - explicitly so here as the format of the book quite literally spaces pieces of the story into a pattern that mirrors a textile work. And just as a story can be told while simultaneously doing something with one's hands, there are multiple story threads flowing together and alternating after a fashion. The thread that appears on the left side, for example, is more lyrical and conversational, while the vignettes on the right side are often more scattershot - some might say Sebaldian - and wide ranging. The work contains other juxtapositions: art vs. technology, weaving vs. computing, etc. What elevates this book beyond an interesting experiment are the insights drawn from these topics (particularly automation and machine learning) and a form that facilitates engagement with the work in a new and profound way.
March 5, 2023
An odd coupling of
mathematics & poetry
Moderation & extravagance
Discipline & desire
Science & romanticism
Thread Ripper is Jennifer Russell's translation of Amalie Smith's Danish novel Thread Ripper.
The narrator of the novel is a Danish woman, daughter of a mathematician mother and artistic father. She is embarking, in 2017-18, on a project which involves training a machine-learning algorithm on pictures of flowers, so it can produce its own created images of vegetation. These designs she will then program in to a digital loom to make a tapestry, the whole a project to demostrate her view that weaving was the start of the digital age.
The highly-powered computer processor she uses gives the novel its title:
I am weaving a tapestry — or rather, I am designing a tapestry on my computer screen: afterwards it will be woven on an industrial digital loom.
I have built this computer myself. I chose a processor with eight cores and 16 threads, an AMD Ryzen Threadripper. I tore its label in half and named the computer Thread Ripper.
This is based on a project the author herself undertook - or perhaps the project is based on the novel: https://www.bloom.ooo/explore/flora-d...
The novel is also told in an clever format with two strands weaved together.
On the right hand pages (numbered from 1 to 108, after the 108 suitors of Penelope In the Odyssey), the narrator tells us of her story but also weaves in (sorry, but hard to think of a better term) miscellanea in a Sebaldian fashion (yes, complete with b/w images) including:
The left-hand pages, also numbered from 1 to 108, are by the same narrator, but more poetic, many written to her partner, William:
The sea slips back like a blanket pulled of a bed, leaving the beach bare.
In an instant, all oceans drained. New mountain chains and valleys, new riverbeds, gorges, shipwrecks and towns.
The lights go off, come back on and then go off again. We sit in darkness at the bottom of the dried-out pool.
The Stars above us, like eyes gleaming in the thicket or lights blinking in the gloom of a server park.
And the key figure holding the novel together is Ada Lovelace, also daughter of an artist (Lord Byron the poet) and a mathematician mother, whose husband was also called William, and whose translator's notes on an article from the Italian on Babbage's Analytical Engine took the concept much further than Babbage himself, Lovelace often credited as the first computer programmer.
I am Ada
Fruit of the short marriage between
Annabella Milbanke & Lord Byron
An odd coupling of
mathematics & poetry
Moderation & extravagance
Discipline & desire
Science & romanticism
I never got to know my poet father
Above the fireplace hung his portrait
hidden behind fabric of heavy weight
which could not be drawn aside
My mathematician mother gave me a strict schooling
Algebra kept me away from sentimental poetry
A fascinating and innovative novel and indeed "an odd coupling of mathematics & poetry, science & romanticism."
4.5 stars
This is the latest book from Lolli Editions, a wonderful small independent press, who specialise primarily in fr0m-the-Danish fiction:
mathematics & poetry
Moderation & extravagance
Discipline & desire
Science & romanticism
Thread Ripper is Jennifer Russell's translation of Amalie Smith's Danish novel Thread Ripper.
The narrator of the novel is a Danish woman, daughter of a mathematician mother and artistic father. She is embarking, in 2017-18, on a project which involves training a machine-learning algorithm on pictures of flowers, so it can produce its own created images of vegetation. These designs she will then program in to a digital loom to make a tapestry, the whole a project to demostrate her view that weaving was the start of the digital age.
The highly-powered computer processor she uses gives the novel its title:
I am weaving a tapestry — or rather, I am designing a tapestry on my computer screen: afterwards it will be woven on an industrial digital loom.
I have built this computer myself. I chose a processor with eight cores and 16 threads, an AMD Ryzen Threadripper. I tore its label in half and named the computer Thread Ripper.
This is based on a project the author herself undertook - or perhaps the project is based on the novel: https://www.bloom.ooo/explore/flora-d...
The novel is also told in an clever format with two strands weaved together.
On the right hand pages (numbered from 1 to 108, after the 108 suitors of Penelope In the Odyssey), the narrator tells us of her story but also weaves in (sorry, but hard to think of a better term) miscellanea in a Sebaldian fashion (yes, complete with b/w images) including:
Penelope from the Iliad weaving her shroud;
Maria Sibylla Merian’s study of the metamorphosis of silkworms;
Jacquard punch cards;
James Tilly Matthew’s paranoid persecutory delusions about the Air Loom;
The Luddites;
Babbage’s Analytical Engine;
Linnaeus’s dismissal of the insect-catching abilities of the Venus flytrap;
Darwin’s fascination with the sundew;
Fairchild Semiconductor’s employment of Navajo weavers;
Westford Needles;
Grace Hopper and the Original Computer Bug;
Novels about people turning into plants including Han Kang/Deborah Smith's The Vegetarian
The Atomic Garden in Japan;
Google’s DeepDream;
Starlink; and
Jennifer Lopez’s dress at the 2000 Grammy’s.
The left-hand pages, also numbered from 1 to 108, are by the same narrator, but more poetic, many written to her partner, William:
The sea slips back like a blanket pulled of a bed, leaving the beach bare.
In an instant, all oceans drained. New mountain chains and valleys, new riverbeds, gorges, shipwrecks and towns.
The lights go off, come back on and then go off again. We sit in darkness at the bottom of the dried-out pool.
The Stars above us, like eyes gleaming in the thicket or lights blinking in the gloom of a server park.
And the key figure holding the novel together is Ada Lovelace, also daughter of an artist (Lord Byron the poet) and a mathematician mother, whose husband was also called William, and whose translator's notes on an article from the Italian on Babbage's Analytical Engine took the concept much further than Babbage himself, Lovelace often credited as the first computer programmer.
I am Ada
Fruit of the short marriage between
Annabella Milbanke & Lord Byron
An odd coupling of
mathematics & poetry
Moderation & extravagance
Discipline & desire
Science & romanticism
I never got to know my poet father
Above the fireplace hung his portrait
hidden behind fabric of heavy weight
which could not be drawn aside
My mathematician mother gave me a strict schooling
Algebra kept me away from sentimental poetry
A fascinating and innovative novel and indeed "an odd coupling of mathematics & poetry, science & romanticism."
4.5 stars
This is the latest book from Lolli Editions, a wonderful small independent press, who specialise primarily in fr0m-the-Danish fiction:
We publish contemporary fiction that challenges existing ideas and breathes new life into the novel form. Our aim is to introduce to English-language readers some of the most innovative writers that speak to our shared culture in new and compelling ways, from Europe and beyond.
July 25, 2022
An inventive approach to storytelling which interlaces a personal story of a digital weaving project with a wider, if fragmented, history of the age-long correlations between weaving, creativity, narrative and machines. The abstract idea which, appropriately enough, holds the whole thing together is the image of how weaving comprises the unification of warp and weft, individual pieces coming together to a unified and harmonious whole, literally, the whole picture.
Some of the pieces of this intertwining are more familiar than others: Penelope, inevitably, weaving and unweaving her tapestry to keep her suitors at bay (me, I find Helen's weaving of the story of the war at Troy more productive of weaving as storytelling, textile as text); the abbreviated history of silkworms (very Sebaldian); and early industrial looms to the Luddite movement. But there's a lovely leap to Ada Lovelace, Byron's daughter, and a mathematician who worked with Burbage on the early computer. One of my favourite parts of the book are where the narrator uploads Ada's journals and the computer algorithm turns the pieces into a voice - quite haunting, that.
The text itself reflects this conceptual fragmentation and unification, the way that stray, small pieces can be pulled together into a coherent whole, through the typographical layout, with the personal and the historical stories taking place independently on alternate pages: it's up, then, to each reader to decide how to navigate through the parallel strands (a bit like Exquisite Cadavers) and to interlace them in their mind - a nice level of readerly agency that I appreciated.
With insertions about plants and wider nature, and the narrator's research into her genetic background before coming to the origin of humanity in Africa, this offers up a hopeful, optimistic view of natural and universal interconnection that I'm not sure I completely buy into. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the ingenious way in which layers are manifested through both the materiality and the textuality of this book.
Some of the pieces of this intertwining are more familiar than others: Penelope, inevitably, weaving and unweaving her tapestry to keep her suitors at bay (me, I find Helen's weaving of the story of the war at Troy more productive of weaving as storytelling, textile as text); the abbreviated history of silkworms (very Sebaldian); and early industrial looms to the Luddite movement. But there's a lovely leap to Ada Lovelace, Byron's daughter, and a mathematician who worked with Burbage on the early computer. One of my favourite parts of the book are where the narrator uploads Ada's journals and the computer algorithm turns the pieces into a voice - quite haunting, that.
The text itself reflects this conceptual fragmentation and unification, the way that stray, small pieces can be pulled together into a coherent whole, through the typographical layout, with the personal and the historical stories taking place independently on alternate pages: it's up, then, to each reader to decide how to navigate through the parallel strands (a bit like Exquisite Cadavers) and to interlace them in their mind - a nice level of readerly agency that I appreciated.
With insertions about plants and wider nature, and the narrator's research into her genetic background before coming to the origin of humanity in Africa, this offers up a hopeful, optimistic view of natural and universal interconnection that I'm not sure I completely buy into. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the ingenious way in which layers are manifested through both the materiality and the textuality of this book.
December 25, 2022
Another one from the Mookse group's end of year list, and well worthy of its place there. Smith weaves a fascinating tapestry, largely inspired by Ada Lovelace, but also by more recent developments in artificial intelligence and neural networks, along with weaving elements such as Penelope and the Jacquard loom. Intelligent, stimulating and full of surprising connections - a fine book.
September 1, 2022
Rarely have I paid such attention to a novel’s layout as in Thread Ripper, where the left page follows a somewhat different though related narrative to the one on the right page, and the two strands are as though woven together by the pagination inserted near the binding of the pages. The strands are more and more interwoven (ha) as the novel progresses. And what about the content, then? Well, it’s about weaving, and coding: two things whose similarity the author stresses throughout. It’s an excellent and refreshing read, and could have been closer to five stars if only I was less weary of a certain type of “wiki novel” where authors attempt to weave (ha) poetic insight into facts taken from the internet. Thread Ripper is by far not the worst example of this trend, however. It is rather an inspiring and thought-provoking novel.
Read
October 16, 2020Amalie Smith är allt samtidigt. Thread Ripper är facklitteratur, skönlitteratur och poetik på samma gång!
Smith är potentiellt min favoritförfattare.
Smith är potentiellt min favoritförfattare.
March 20, 2021
Amalie Smith er som altid forundringsvækkende skarp, indfølt, funfactdroppende på en ekistentiel måde, nænsomt beskrivende og subtilt politisk. Men nu er hun også sjov på den der så-sprogligt-præcisupræcist-original-at-man-må-værdsætte-det-med-et-grin-måden!
"Et køleskab med døren på klem, som om nogen derinde var med på en lytter."
"En myg stak mig på halsen, det klør som efter at mødes og drikke vin."
"Økonomien gør min lever grøn som halsen på en han-and."
"Stjernerne over os som glitrende øjne i et buskads eller blinkende lamper i en serverparks mørke."
Og den her, som jeg simpelthen ikke fatter en brik af og derfor elsker: "Vinteren er her. Som at vågne op i midten af en croissant."
Det er, som om Amalie Smith med Thread Ripper har fundet helt hjem: endelig har fået plads til alle de totalt modsatrettede ting hun kan i én bog; De næste 5000 dages sproglige legesyghed; I civils kærlighedsmelankoli; Marbles aktivistiske tilgang til kunsthistorien og mærkeligt afrevne fiktive øjeblikke; og hele forfatterskabets fascination af det mindblowende ved at leve i dette uigennemskuelige univers. Jeg råber hovedværk.
"Et køleskab med døren på klem, som om nogen derinde var med på en lytter."
"En myg stak mig på halsen, det klør som efter at mødes og drikke vin."
"Økonomien gør min lever grøn som halsen på en han-and."
"Stjernerne over os som glitrende øjne i et buskads eller blinkende lamper i en serverparks mørke."
Og den her, som jeg simpelthen ikke fatter en brik af og derfor elsker: "Vinteren er her. Som at vågne op i midten af en croissant."
Det er, som om Amalie Smith med Thread Ripper har fundet helt hjem: endelig har fået plads til alle de totalt modsatrettede ting hun kan i én bog; De næste 5000 dages sproglige legesyghed; I civils kærlighedsmelankoli; Marbles aktivistiske tilgang til kunsthistorien og mærkeligt afrevne fiktive øjeblikke; og hele forfatterskabets fascination af det mindblowende ved at leve i dette uigennemskuelige univers. Jeg råber hovedværk.
April 11, 2024
It's been a long time since I read a book that struck a cord in me like this book does. I usually don't like experimental literature because I have a hard time understanding it. This one however came so naturally to me. I love how the form of the book is proof of its content, I love how the Notes and .TXT parts complement each other perfectly and read as if they're woven by a loom, I love how the book combines the history of the loom with the history and future of the computer and with nature, I love how the inner musings are so incredibly relatable. So glad I bought it, I highlighted half the book.
February 28, 2021
En fin lille perle
April 28, 2023
How to digtsamle
December 25, 2022
I read this book several months ago but didn’t write a review. Now it is not fresh enough in my mind to attempt to write a review. What I will say is that of all the books I read in 2022 it is this one that is top of my re-read list. I read it electronically but immediately bought a paper copy.
August 14, 2023
Werd me getipt door Lars en heb het meteen gekocht. Vervolgens gewacht op het juiste moment om het in 1 zit uit te lezen, daar is het een perfect boek voor.
Vond het format echt heel mooi en op de momenten dat het werkte, werkt het erg goed, maar hier en daar voelde het ook wat te hard geprobeerd.
Vond het format echt heel mooi en op de momenten dat het werkte, werkt het erg goed, maar hier en daar voelde het ook wat te hard geprobeerd.
May 20, 2024
Smuk og nørdet
January 10, 2023
The punched card is the physical link connecting the history of the computer to that of the loom. If we trace this connection backwards, we see that the history of the computer extends thousands of years.
With the invention of weaving, humans have already broken down images into points that are assembled into chains, in turn assembled into a pattern or image, not unlike pixels on a screen.
Jacquard could apply punched cards to the loom
because weaving is intrinsically a binary technology: the weft is passed over or under the warp. These two possibilities permitted translation into hole or no-hole in the punched card. And later, into zeroes and ones. [9]
Your father — he says
— raged against these machines
before the House of Lords
He spoke in defence of the Luddites!
The factory owner gives me a sharp look
as if he believes
he could drill holes in my body
out of which my dead father would spill
Is that so — I counter
— that I did not know
& add loudly so my mother can hear —
My admiration for these machines is great
They do not lose a thread
or break a pattern
They can do the work of humans
better faster & without wages
They know no difference between night & day
Their minds are not contorted by love
They do not long for sleep at night [92]
June 10, 2023
“My mathematician mother
gave me a strict schooling
Algebra kept me away
from sentimental poetry
Mathematics was a bulwark
against bodily vices
My disciple was strict
but my longing is stricter”
A meditation on the commonality of the tale of Penelope undoing her tapestry at night, the automated jacquard loom with punch cards denoting the binary option of the weft thread going over or under the warp thread, Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage work on the Analytic Engine, the thread in needlework and the thread in computing, the punch cards relaying the binary code of 0s and 1s for a computer to read, the combination of the maternal and the paternal half to produce a zygote and so much more. Much like Dionne Brand’s the Blue Clerk, the left hand page and the right hand are distinct and yet in conversation with each other.
“…Raytheon, which produces military electronic equipment, hires female textile workers…to pull copper threads through tiny magnetizable rings. These are called magnetic-core memories, and for over 20 years they are the primary way of writing, storing and reading data. For those two decades, data is something you weave. The landing algorithms on Apollo spacecraft are stored on ferrite cores and copper threads made by weavers. When humans land on the moon, the computer loom lands with them.”
gave me a strict schooling
Algebra kept me away
from sentimental poetry
Mathematics was a bulwark
against bodily vices
My disciple was strict
but my longing is stricter”
A meditation on the commonality of the tale of Penelope undoing her tapestry at night, the automated jacquard loom with punch cards denoting the binary option of the weft thread going over or under the warp thread, Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage work on the Analytic Engine, the thread in needlework and the thread in computing, the punch cards relaying the binary code of 0s and 1s for a computer to read, the combination of the maternal and the paternal half to produce a zygote and so much more. Much like Dionne Brand’s the Blue Clerk, the left hand page and the right hand are distinct and yet in conversation with each other.
“…Raytheon, which produces military electronic equipment, hires female textile workers…to pull copper threads through tiny magnetizable rings. These are called magnetic-core memories, and for over 20 years they are the primary way of writing, storing and reading data. For those two decades, data is something you weave. The landing algorithms on Apollo spacecraft are stored on ferrite cores and copper threads made by weavers. When humans land on the moon, the computer loom lands with them.”
May 10, 2024
I read this book slowly to enjoy it longer. There is not much of a narrative but the writing is beautiful. All about weaving and neural systems and digital frameworks and relationships.
This book is not published in the US yet but you can get it online. I heard about it from a friend who found it while in London.
This book is not published in the US yet but you can get it online. I heard about it from a friend who found it while in London.
February 16, 2023
“Jeg indrettes ikke, til menneskernes velvilje”
April 1, 2024
Poetisk og dragende. De to parallelle sporene i fortellingen vekker nysgjerrighet mellom informasjon og refleksjoner. Anbefales!
April 2, 2023
Like nothing I've ever read before
January 25, 2023
Lad det være sagt med det samme. Jeg er rimelig ukritisk Amalie Smith-fan, så jeg er nok ikke helt objektiv - men: Hvis nogen skulle spørge mig, er hun sandsynligvis en af de bedste kunstnere, vi har lige nu. Det havde jeg bestemt mig til, allerede inden jeg læste Thread Ripper, men så er det jo heldigt, at det er fantastisk at blive bekræftet.
Hvad der for mig adskiller Amalie Smith fra andet, jeg har læst, er - udover hendes elegante, underspillede sprogbehandling - hendes insisteren på at være sin egen. Koblingen af en undersøgelse af universaliteten på den ene side og jegets arbejde med sig selv på den anden (eller den samme, vel i virkeligheden?) er ret enestående. Jeg afslører sikkert bare min egen manglende belæsthed, men jeg kan ikke huske, at jeg har set det projekt udfoldet på samme måde andre steder, og det er ret påfaldende, for det er utroligt vedkommende og meget smukt på samme tid. Al god kunst er politisk, og al politisk kunst er dårlig, som Harald Giersing sagde engang.
Jeg var i sin tid vildt begejstret for Et hjerte i alt, og jeg bilder mig ind, at jeg kan se flere beslægtede temaer i Thread Ripper - bortset fra, at jeg synes, Thread Ripper er et endnu stærkere værk, både formmæssigt og tematisk. Amalie Smith skriver om vævningen som fundament for databehandlingen. Vævningen bliver et udtryk for matematikkens generelle ambition om et sprog, der kan beskrive hele eksistensen, og det kobler hun igen med digterjegets erkendelse og i sidste ende med et spørgsmål om selve bevidsthedens natur.
Jeg er patosjunkie nok til at få gåsehud op og ned ad armene, når hun begynder at tale om algoritmen, der drømmer, og det er faktisk symptomatisk for min oplevelse af Thread Ripper, for det er virkelig et af de bedste værker, jeg har læst længe.
Hvad der for mig adskiller Amalie Smith fra andet, jeg har læst, er - udover hendes elegante, underspillede sprogbehandling - hendes insisteren på at være sin egen. Koblingen af en undersøgelse af universaliteten på den ene side og jegets arbejde med sig selv på den anden (eller den samme, vel i virkeligheden?) er ret enestående. Jeg afslører sikkert bare min egen manglende belæsthed, men jeg kan ikke huske, at jeg har set det projekt udfoldet på samme måde andre steder, og det er ret påfaldende, for det er utroligt vedkommende og meget smukt på samme tid. Al god kunst er politisk, og al politisk kunst er dårlig, som Harald Giersing sagde engang.
Jeg var i sin tid vildt begejstret for Et hjerte i alt, og jeg bilder mig ind, at jeg kan se flere beslægtede temaer i Thread Ripper - bortset fra, at jeg synes, Thread Ripper er et endnu stærkere værk, både formmæssigt og tematisk. Amalie Smith skriver om vævningen som fundament for databehandlingen. Vævningen bliver et udtryk for matematikkens generelle ambition om et sprog, der kan beskrive hele eksistensen, og det kobler hun igen med digterjegets erkendelse og i sidste ende med et spørgsmål om selve bevidsthedens natur.
Jeg er patosjunkie nok til at få gåsehud op og ned ad armene, når hun begynder at tale om algoritmen, der drømmer, og det er faktisk symptomatisk for min oplevelse af Thread Ripper, for det er virkelig et af de bedste værker, jeg har læst længe.
October 1, 2020
Thread Ripper er Amalie Smiths processor i den maskin hvorpå hun lade Googles Deep Dream Algoritme hhv. drømme sig til at være Ada Lovelace og lave designs til vævede billedtæpper - og i Tread Ripper væver AS selv historier sammen om sit eget arbejde, om Ada og neurale netværk - hele tiden med en stærk forbindelse til den vævekunst, der går forud for vores digitale verden i dag. Vævenes over eller under / Nuller eller ettaller / der kan udtrykkes og programmeres med hulkort, der igen baner vejen for at bruge 'analytiske maskiner' til andet end at lave mønstre - og således starter den digitale revolution.
Bogen er (naturligvis) også et kunstværk i sig selv - ud over at være lækkert lavet og trykt på papir der knirker når det knuges, så er det og sat op så de to parallelle tekster på hhv venstre- og højresiderne fletter sig mellem hinanden som et stykke papirvævekunst, når det ses i modlys.
Bogen er (naturligvis) også et kunstværk i sig selv - ud over at være lækkert lavet og trykt på papir der knirker når det knuges, så er det og sat op så de to parallelle tekster på hhv venstre- og højresiderne fletter sig mellem hinanden som et stykke papirvævekunst, når det ses i modlys.
March 5, 2023
Thread Ripper er, på trods af den engelskklingende titel, en dansk bog. Den er skrevet af den danske forfatter og billedkunstner Amalie Smith, og er en hybrid mellem prosa og faglige nørderier.
Bogen foregår i nutiden (2017) og handler om Penelope (pigenavn fra klassisk græsk, der betyder væver), der er navnesøster med Penelope, kone til Odysseus fra Odysseen (oldgræsk fortælling) som ved Odysseus langvarige rejse er omgivet af bejlere, med hvem hun indgår den aftale at skulle væve et klæde færdig før hun kan gifte sig igen. Så hun væver hver dag og trævler op hver nat.
Denne fortælling væver sig ind og ud af (nutidige) Penelopes (og Amalie Smiths) liv, som en underliggende tone. Jeg læser bogen som et selvbiografisk essay, selv om den ikke er præsenteret som sådan. Og jeg bliver undervejs i læsningen i tvivl om, hvad der er fakta og hvad der er fiktion. Især der hvor det digitale AI- program Deep Dream format overtager, med længere tekster skrevet af et google-program fodret med tekster og breve.
(Nutidige) Penelope arbejder på et værk, et tæppe, for digitaliseringsstyrelsen. Hun føler og længes og mærker og undersøger og betvivler, alt imens hun søger viden til opgaven og trækker tråde imellem det taktile og det digitale, imellem det følsomme og det faktuelle.
Vi præsenteres først og fremmest for væven. Den måske ældste form for teknologi, som iboende indeholder både sprog, matematik og systematik. Den gør det abstrakte konkret. Væven industrialiseres i 1800-tallet og betjenes med hulkort. Hulkortet bestemmer skudtrådens position til enten at ligge over eller under kædetråden, hvilket svarer til computerens nuller og ettaller.
Ud fra denne teknologi skabes lommeregneren, og derefter computeren. Så væven kædes derfor igennem bogen sammen med computeren, og vævningerne med væv. Fysiske og digitale. Neurale netværk, digitale netværk, drømme og tankespind.
Vi hører om de mennesker der har været med i skabelsen af maskinerne og teknologierne, som studerer matematik, teknologi, biologi og psykologi og vi hører om de vidt forskellige teknologier. Blandt andet hører vi om Ada Lovelace og om hendes familieforhold. Og vi hører om Penelope, og hendes familieforhold. Og igennem bogen fremhæves de slående ligheder mellem de historiske personers forhold, og Penelopes.
Gennem bogen væves der derfor ikke kun følelser og fakta, videnskab og æstetik, men der væves også gennem tiden, som trækkes en tråd igennem et sort hul der giver en smutvej til historie og viden fra alle de andre mennesker der gennem århundreder har været på en selvvalgt mission der handler om at udforske, materialisere og kortlægge forskellige typer af væv, og denne rejse minder om Penelopes. Ada Lovelace som følges tættest i bogen kom et stykke vej i sin udforskning, og hun skriver: ”Jeg kan ikke se, hvorfor cerebralt stof skulle være mere uhåndterligt for matematikere end astralt og planetarisk stof og dets bevægelser, hvis blot de ville betragte det fra den rigtige vinkel. Jeg håber at kunne overdrage fremtidige generationer en ’Calculus for Nervesystemet’” (s. 21). Men desværre døde Ada i en alder af kun 36 år, hvormed hendes mission stoppede.
Det føles lidt som om Penelope (Amalie Smith) er på en lignende mission, og den dokumenteres så fint igennem denne bog. Som drømmespind der fanger bidder af materie der nogle gange har æstetisk indhold, nogle gange følelsesmæssigt indhold og nogle gange historisk eller faktabaseret indhold, men som altid har indhold der er opbygget af samme grundstamme eller af samme stof.
Således kommer bogen ind på mange emner, der ikke handler udpræget om hverken vævning eller vævningens historie, men også områder som nuklear kernekraft, møl, ”bugs”, planter, træer, biokemi og DNA. Og dér blev jeg for alvor begejstret.
Jeg har selv igennem den sidste tid netop læst om træer, i Peter Wohllebens bog ”Træernes hemmelige liv”, og før det i Karl Ove Knausgårds ”Ulvene fra evighedens skov”. Jeg læste bøgerne og blev begejstret, men kunne ikke sætte ord på, hvorfor det føltes så vigtigt og væsentligt for mig (der egentlig er fagligt interesseret i tekstil og modeområdet, hvilket jeg begyndte at betvivle vigtigheden af, fordi det blegner ved siden af den storhed der findes i disse biologiske og meget mere væsentlige områder), men ”the wood wide web” (Wohlleben, 2016) blev med ét kædet sammen med alt andet, i denne bog, og i en fælles søgen efter en bevidsthed (som både Wohlleben og Smith påtager sig) i træerne og planterne, får Smith via en taktil tilgang gjort området fysisk: ”Det er vel i grunden ikke mere overraskende, at en plante kan træffe beslutninger, end at mennesker kan? Menneskehjernen er hverken mere eller mindre end et ekstra foldet område i væv, der udgør en krop. Menneskehjernen er en del af kroppens væv. Den er kroppens væv, der tænker” (s.75).
Denne bog formår at væve mange relevante emner sammen, og ikke bare det, så bliver ny teknologi og fagtermer som fx Crispr, singularitet og den fjerde industrielle revolution brugt i bisætninger, som var det normalitetsbegreber vi alle kender til. Jeg har læst bøgerne: Supertrends, af Lars Tvede (2019); Verden fra forstanden af Franklin Foer (2018); Forbandede fremskridt, af Johan og Adam Moe Fejerskov (2020), Omstilling til Fremtiden af Peter Hesseldahl (2022) og Den fjerde industrielle revolution, af Claus Svaab (2018) og det at jeg har læst ovenstående bøger gør at begreberne resonerer, og føles på sin plads, og alligevel er jeg i beundring over, at de netop er med i denne bog.
Når man igennem læsningen lukker øjnene, og åbner dem igen, så er det ligesom at vågne fra en drøm. Hvor man ikke er helt sikker på hvad man har drømt, men hvor man har en følelse af, at det var vigtigt. Jeg er så begejstret at jeg må få mere hold om drømmen og læse bogen igen.
Jeg er i beundring over, at dette undseelige lille værk findes. Bogen her gør, at mine egne sammenvævede tanker giver mening. Som at læse de undersøgelser og søgninger jeg ikke vidste at jeg manglede, for at blive hel. Eller i hvert fald så hel som jeg kan blive i dette stadie af min rejse.
Bogen foregår i nutiden (2017) og handler om Penelope (pigenavn fra klassisk græsk, der betyder væver), der er navnesøster med Penelope, kone til Odysseus fra Odysseen (oldgræsk fortælling) som ved Odysseus langvarige rejse er omgivet af bejlere, med hvem hun indgår den aftale at skulle væve et klæde færdig før hun kan gifte sig igen. Så hun væver hver dag og trævler op hver nat.
Denne fortælling væver sig ind og ud af (nutidige) Penelopes (og Amalie Smiths) liv, som en underliggende tone. Jeg læser bogen som et selvbiografisk essay, selv om den ikke er præsenteret som sådan. Og jeg bliver undervejs i læsningen i tvivl om, hvad der er fakta og hvad der er fiktion. Især der hvor det digitale AI- program Deep Dream format overtager, med længere tekster skrevet af et google-program fodret med tekster og breve.
(Nutidige) Penelope arbejder på et værk, et tæppe, for digitaliseringsstyrelsen. Hun føler og længes og mærker og undersøger og betvivler, alt imens hun søger viden til opgaven og trækker tråde imellem det taktile og det digitale, imellem det følsomme og det faktuelle.
Vi præsenteres først og fremmest for væven. Den måske ældste form for teknologi, som iboende indeholder både sprog, matematik og systematik. Den gør det abstrakte konkret. Væven industrialiseres i 1800-tallet og betjenes med hulkort. Hulkortet bestemmer skudtrådens position til enten at ligge over eller under kædetråden, hvilket svarer til computerens nuller og ettaller.
Ud fra denne teknologi skabes lommeregneren, og derefter computeren. Så væven kædes derfor igennem bogen sammen med computeren, og vævningerne med væv. Fysiske og digitale. Neurale netværk, digitale netværk, drømme og tankespind.
Vi hører om de mennesker der har været med i skabelsen af maskinerne og teknologierne, som studerer matematik, teknologi, biologi og psykologi og vi hører om de vidt forskellige teknologier. Blandt andet hører vi om Ada Lovelace og om hendes familieforhold. Og vi hører om Penelope, og hendes familieforhold. Og igennem bogen fremhæves de slående ligheder mellem de historiske personers forhold, og Penelopes.
Gennem bogen væves der derfor ikke kun følelser og fakta, videnskab og æstetik, men der væves også gennem tiden, som trækkes en tråd igennem et sort hul der giver en smutvej til historie og viden fra alle de andre mennesker der gennem århundreder har været på en selvvalgt mission der handler om at udforske, materialisere og kortlægge forskellige typer af væv, og denne rejse minder om Penelopes. Ada Lovelace som følges tættest i bogen kom et stykke vej i sin udforskning, og hun skriver: ”Jeg kan ikke se, hvorfor cerebralt stof skulle være mere uhåndterligt for matematikere end astralt og planetarisk stof og dets bevægelser, hvis blot de ville betragte det fra den rigtige vinkel. Jeg håber at kunne overdrage fremtidige generationer en ’Calculus for Nervesystemet’” (s. 21). Men desværre døde Ada i en alder af kun 36 år, hvormed hendes mission stoppede.
Det føles lidt som om Penelope (Amalie Smith) er på en lignende mission, og den dokumenteres så fint igennem denne bog. Som drømmespind der fanger bidder af materie der nogle gange har æstetisk indhold, nogle gange følelsesmæssigt indhold og nogle gange historisk eller faktabaseret indhold, men som altid har indhold der er opbygget af samme grundstamme eller af samme stof.
Således kommer bogen ind på mange emner, der ikke handler udpræget om hverken vævning eller vævningens historie, men også områder som nuklear kernekraft, møl, ”bugs”, planter, træer, biokemi og DNA. Og dér blev jeg for alvor begejstret.
Jeg har selv igennem den sidste tid netop læst om træer, i Peter Wohllebens bog ”Træernes hemmelige liv”, og før det i Karl Ove Knausgårds ”Ulvene fra evighedens skov”. Jeg læste bøgerne og blev begejstret, men kunne ikke sætte ord på, hvorfor det føltes så vigtigt og væsentligt for mig (der egentlig er fagligt interesseret i tekstil og modeområdet, hvilket jeg begyndte at betvivle vigtigheden af, fordi det blegner ved siden af den storhed der findes i disse biologiske og meget mere væsentlige områder), men ”the wood wide web” (Wohlleben, 2016) blev med ét kædet sammen med alt andet, i denne bog, og i en fælles søgen efter en bevidsthed (som både Wohlleben og Smith påtager sig) i træerne og planterne, får Smith via en taktil tilgang gjort området fysisk: ”Det er vel i grunden ikke mere overraskende, at en plante kan træffe beslutninger, end at mennesker kan? Menneskehjernen er hverken mere eller mindre end et ekstra foldet område i væv, der udgør en krop. Menneskehjernen er en del af kroppens væv. Den er kroppens væv, der tænker” (s.75).
Denne bog formår at væve mange relevante emner sammen, og ikke bare det, så bliver ny teknologi og fagtermer som fx Crispr, singularitet og den fjerde industrielle revolution brugt i bisætninger, som var det normalitetsbegreber vi alle kender til. Jeg har læst bøgerne: Supertrends, af Lars Tvede (2019); Verden fra forstanden af Franklin Foer (2018); Forbandede fremskridt, af Johan og Adam Moe Fejerskov (2020), Omstilling til Fremtiden af Peter Hesseldahl (2022) og Den fjerde industrielle revolution, af Claus Svaab (2018) og det at jeg har læst ovenstående bøger gør at begreberne resonerer, og føles på sin plads, og alligevel er jeg i beundring over, at de netop er med i denne bog.
Når man igennem læsningen lukker øjnene, og åbner dem igen, så er det ligesom at vågne fra en drøm. Hvor man ikke er helt sikker på hvad man har drømt, men hvor man har en følelse af, at det var vigtigt. Jeg er så begejstret at jeg må få mere hold om drømmen og læse bogen igen.
Jeg er i beundring over, at dette undseelige lille værk findes. Bogen her gør, at mine egne sammenvævede tanker giver mening. Som at læse de undersøgelser og søgninger jeg ikke vidste at jeg manglede, for at blive hel. Eller i hvert fald så hel som jeg kan blive i dette stadie af min rejse.
July 18, 2022
Don’t know what she’s saying, but she’s speaking straight FACTS! 😤
December 31, 2022
I am Ada
Fruit of the short marriage between
Annabella Milbanke & Lord Byron
An odd coupling of
mathematics & poetry
Moderation & extravagance
Discipline & desire
Science & romanticism
This 2020 experimental and hybrid novel (in turn part of a wider art project - https://www.bloom.ooo/explore/flora-d...) was translated from the Danish original by Jennifer Russell and published in the UK by Lolli Editions.
What I think is most interesting about this novel is that it draws heavily on some fairly familiar threads and materials) at least in the rarified world of innovative fiction ideas and techniques) while weaving them together into an innovative literary text
And what is most challenging about writing a review of it is deciding whether to try and avoid words about weaving and as you can see I have already thrown in the towel (admittedly one hand crafted in a loom) and decided to embrace it instead in line with I think the intentions of the author who in a 2021 interview about her previous novel talked about this one by saying:
This metaphor of weaving is newer to me because I started working with textiles after I wrote Marble, but it’s similar to the way I would talk about the network and braiding text. Weaving of course has some of the same qualities, by being two systems of threads interlaced. In Marble we have Anne-Marie Carl Nielsen and Marble, and in Thread Ripper we have a contemporary weaver and Ada Lovelace, each pair of figures is interwoven in a way.
Etymologically, textile and text both stem from texere, it has the same root. It is important to say that weaving is older than text; we were weaving before writing was invented. When writing was invented, people would think of it like word-weaving. It makes a lot of sense to me to think of a text as a woven structure, it takes strands from many places, yarn is dyed in many places and colours, and can form a pattern or a motif. There can be a rhythm or repetition, something that comes again and again, often in new ways.
With Thread Ripper I designed the book so that on the left side is one strand and on the right side is a different one. So, you read one strand and then the other, you alternate back and forth. The reader is the one who is weaving together these two strands; in a way the book functions just like a loom. We are going to have it in the same way in the English book, because it’s so integrated in the reading of it. Although it does make it look like a strange novel on the page, it makes sense when you read it.”
The novel in my view borrows from (of reproduces) a number of common ideas: novels about other art forms which use those art forms to influence the writer’s approach to writing; novels which are part of a wider art project and where that art project explicitly interacts with the novel (Olga Ravn’s International Booker shortlisted “The Employees” also published by Lolli Editions being one example); and most of all the (rather I think too frequent now) Wiki entries as novel genre (think say Louis Sagasti and large chunks of the 2021 International Booker longlist).
And the (also perhaps a little too common) Sebaldian influence seems very clear - not just in the mix of historical fact and historical non-fact (I think that’s the best way to describe Sebald’s deliberately ambiguous relationship with biography) and the inevitable black and white photos - but even in the choice of early anecdote with the featuring of silkworms. Interestingly it’s the second Sebald inspired novel I have read this year which seemed to go out if it’s way to draw not just on similar techniques but similar subjects - Paul Stanbridge’s “My Mind To Me A Kingdom Is” featuring the North Sea and walking around East Anglia before culminating in a visit to Sebald’s grave. I am not quite sure what to think of this - it can feel like authors are so influenced by Sebald (consciously or subconsciously) that they have to use his materials as a starting point for their own departure.
Returning to the novel there are two main strands written on the left-and right-hand sides of each page in matching series of chapters.
Each is influenced by the author’s real life commission to train a machine-learning neural network algorithm on floral pictures so ax to produce its own machine generated imagery which she will then programme a digital loom to weave.
The right-hand side is where most of the influences above come in. Starting with the story of Penelope and her suitor-choice deferring daily weaving and nightly unweaving (note that the contrast of order/entropy and unravelling runs through the both sides of the novel) we proceed by I have to say fairly familiar ground and some already heavily traced linkages to silkworms, Jacquard punch cards, Luddites (and the link with Byron) to Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine and then Ada Lovelace.
Initially, as my comments might imply, I was underwhelmed by the predictable path of this section but then I felt the story takes off as the project interacts with the story and grows in originality (with anecdotes less familiar to me as we get closer to the present day) but more importantly imagination (with the novel very much entering the welcome territory of fiction).
Firstly, the author (fictionally) programmes another machine learning algorithm which uses the published writings and reported speech of Ada Lovelace to write new autobiographical material in her voice. Later the author fantasises that the “original computer bug” (the moth reported famously by Grace Hopper - the moth itself a link back to silkworms and weaving, Hopper seen as in the lineage of Lovelace) comes back to life and perpetuates via social media and satellite chains.
The left-hand side is much more like fragmentary prose poetry as the narrator contemplates her work, her current childlessness, her relationship with her partner William (to whom many of the verses are addressed) and the natural world. I must admit I found this part less convincing - at times I could see and appreciate the links to the overall themes as well as the interaction with the text immediately to the right of it but then in other parts this insight seemed to elude me and I was not even clear that it was present other than in a very holistic sense of theme (for example dealing with the processes of linkage and decay as I alluded to earlier).
I have to say that around 50 % of the way through the book I felt I had decided the mystery - the author would reveal the conceit that large chunks of this part had been written by an AI poetry generator - alas this ingenious theory proved wrong and I had to face that the opposite might be the case - that it was actually my own comfort in the world of mathematical abstraction and logic that inhibits my ability to appreciate melodramatic verse or as the AI Ada completed the opening quote to my review (talking of the way her mother’s mathematical training distanced her from appreciation of her father’s field of fame) - “Algebra kept me away from sentimental poetry”
Overall though the mix of Ada’s parents produced an astonishing child and the mix of the two similar elements (a quasi-mathematical /IT exploration and some image filled poetry) has given us this memorable novel.
April 16, 2024
This is such an unusual book! It’s narrated by a woman who is a trained tapestry weaver who has been commissioned by the Agency for Digitisation to design a tapestry on a computer. It will then be woven on a modern digital loom.
The structure of this book is incredible. Just as a loom has a weft and a weave that alternate and intersect to form a piece of cloth, the book has alternate narratives on left and right pages. On the left-hand pages are what seem to be journal entries about the woman’s thoughts and feelings about her work, her life, dreams, and nature. These are poetic and emotional, while on the right-hand pages we get more straightforward thoughts about the production of the modern tapestry, the development of neural networks, as well as the story of Ada Lovelace, an 18th century woman commonly thought to be the world’s first computer programmer.
Honestly, I neither understand weaving nor computer programming, but just because I can’t fully explain or understand the book doesn't mean I didn’t appreciate it. In fact, I was awed by and really enjoyed reading this piece of art. The book beautifully weaves together science and poetry. There are also references to Greek mythology and Japan, two themes that happen to be very present in my current reading. I read another review that talked about how the book both thematically and structurally takes fragments and weaves them together into a coherent whole, and I think that’s the perfect description of what this book is doing.
To travel into the future is to become more and more oneself. That's why there is always dust on spacecraft in films. (24)
Winter is here. Like waking up inside a croissant. (31)
The structure of this book is incredible. Just as a loom has a weft and a weave that alternate and intersect to form a piece of cloth, the book has alternate narratives on left and right pages. On the left-hand pages are what seem to be journal entries about the woman’s thoughts and feelings about her work, her life, dreams, and nature. These are poetic and emotional, while on the right-hand pages we get more straightforward thoughts about the production of the modern tapestry, the development of neural networks, as well as the story of Ada Lovelace, an 18th century woman commonly thought to be the world’s first computer programmer.
Honestly, I neither understand weaving nor computer programming, but just because I can’t fully explain or understand the book doesn't mean I didn’t appreciate it. In fact, I was awed by and really enjoyed reading this piece of art. The book beautifully weaves together science and poetry. There are also references to Greek mythology and Japan, two themes that happen to be very present in my current reading. I read another review that talked about how the book both thematically and structurally takes fragments and weaves them together into a coherent whole, and I think that’s the perfect description of what this book is doing.
To travel into the future is to become more and more oneself. That's why there is always dust on spacecraft in films. (24)
Winter is here. Like waking up inside a croissant. (31)
July 23, 2022
The experimental Danish fiction and social history of loom development that you didn't know you needed. It works for me because of the personal side, the artist's inner vulnerability interweaving its narrative with the external world of facts. The former is poetic, the latter is straightforward, another welcome balancing. Take this bit as our artist, the "wavering Penelope" as she terms herself, uncertain and hesitant in making an important decision about her romantic relationship:
And then sometimes we get less clearly straightforward lines: "I don't want to live within what is given. Drain / earthworms through a colander."
The facts side of the narrative starts with looms and branches out into philosophies of machine learning and the nature of plants. "We shouldn't be more surprised by plants making decisions than we are by humans," she writes, making the case that we are too dismissive of the plant kingdom (thanks, Aristotle). The reappraisal of plants/trees in fiction continues apace.
If only my face would fade or get worn out
so I could have a new one.
A face more courageous, more capable, more lit
up from within, solid, baked, hard and beautiful.
Invincible like a young man who has never been
sick, has never got down on his knees or asked
anyone for anything.
And then sometimes we get less clearly straightforward lines: "I don't want to live within what is given. Drain / earthworms through a colander."
The facts side of the narrative starts with looms and branches out into philosophies of machine learning and the nature of plants. "We shouldn't be more surprised by plants making decisions than we are by humans," she writes, making the case that we are too dismissive of the plant kingdom (thanks, Aristotle). The reappraisal of plants/trees in fiction continues apace.
October 5, 2022
I loved this book. I would call it experimental fiction that works! There are multiple story lines woven together - personal, historical (both real and mythical), and functional. The narrator is creating a tapestry using an AI program to be woven on a digital loom, i.e., a loom operated by a software program. She tells us about this process while at the same time providing us the history of the loom, bits of Ada Lovelace's journals, and bits of Penelope's weaving to keep the suitors away, and her own personal concerns. This is done through creating two storylines on the page - one of the right and one on the left. It was beautifully done. My favorite book to date of 2022.
For a much better description of how this is done, including a picture of the text in the book, see Paul Fulcher's excellent review -- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
For a much better description of how this is done, including a picture of the text in the book, see Paul Fulcher's excellent review -- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
January 5, 2023
Fy faen I hope this makes the International Booker long- (and hopefully short-) list this year! Like weaving, knitting can also be translated into binary and so as both a knitter and a mathematician this experimental yet delicate novel strongly piqued my interest and my oh my did it not disappoint. Unlike some other recent novels that frustratingly show a real lack of awareness of the current capabilities of machine learning, *cough cough* chiefly looking at you Klara & the Sun and that thought-bubble scene which to anyone that has studied even a little NLP reads woefully unaware of BERT, Thread Ripper manages to be both refreshingly well researched and accessible. The double-stranded structure of the novel would, in many other novels, simply feel gimmicky but here it completely works and also offers the reader alternative ways to read the novel(s) on a second reading.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews