Weaving and weightlifting

Major progress on the AI weaving project! And also one or two right-angle changes.

I finished weaving the tiger. It came out beautifully:

This design uses four wefts, all brushed mohair/silk yarn (it feels SOOOO yummy!). One weft is orange, one black, and the two remaining wefts are both white (I wanted to get better coverage).

I also wove up a sample with a fifth weft – .75 mm strands of optical fiber! Optical fiber conducts light from end to end with very little light leakage in between – unless, of course, you scratch it up with a knife or sandpaper, in which case the scratched part glows.

(The idea is not original to me. I’d done a piece (of sorts) waaaaaay back when, about ten years ago, in collaboration with Laurie Carlson Steger, who showed me how. She did all the hard parts – I wove an image of a rocket launch and wove in the optical fiber (with her help), but she did all the knife-work to make the piece glow in all the right areas.)

I tested both knife and sandpaper. In the video below, the bright area in the center is scratched with a razor blade, while the bright area on the right is gently sanded with 80 grit sandpaper. That allows the light to leak out wherever I want a glow.

The video shows some of the tricks that you can play with the light. In the video, out of sight, I’m waving a small pocket flashlight over the ends of the strands, which creates a play of light in the glowing spots as the light waxes and wanes over the end of each fiber.

Since each fiber has the potential to be lit up separately from all the others, I’m thinking it would be fun to mount some LEDs at the ends of some optical fibers, to make the design glow or flash or ?? in the specific areas I want. I’m not clear yet on exactly what kind of pattern I want – that depends in part on what can practically be done. So one thing on the list is simply getting a bunch of LEDs and experimenting.

I’m collaborating with a Stanford EE graduate student on this. The plan is for me to do the weaving and Clarissa to do the electronics design and prototyping – it’s going to be really exciting to work with (and hopefully learn from) her.

Now to the right-angle turn in the project. I was noodling on the design of the piece, and what I wanted to say with it. I realized that the tiger, while cool, really didn’t capture the ambiguity I was looking for. Because the ambiguity isn’t between AI and animals, it’s between AI and humans.

Back to DALL-E to get a human face!

After fiddling with (and getting frustrated by) DALL-E for a while, I had an image that seemed like a good start:

I couldn’t seem to convince DALL-E to modify the image to include the entire head – no matter what prompt I used, it wanted to cut off the top of the hair. I did manage to get one image that showed an entire head, though, and the hair was a similar style.

So off to Photoshop and its AI-based Generative Fill. I grafted the top of the other head onto the first image. It didn’t match, of course, so I selected the area and typed into the Generative Fill, “Blend the two photos together seamlessly”. I also flipped the image horizontally.

And here’s what came out:

I’m not going to weave this as a straight-up image. Instead, I’m going to duplicate the left side of the face and put it over the cyborg-y bits, and weave the whole thing as a human face. Then, once the weaving is done, add the circuitry over the top of the face (basically, embroidering it on). I haven’t figured out how I’m going to do the metal bits, as the image is flat. Maybe 3D-print something of the right shape and paint it over? So many possibilities!

The idea behind the piece is the blurred line between AI generated art and human-generated art, and also the blurred line between AI (which often seems human) and humans. I haven’t yet got an official title, but am thinking “Am I AI?” might not be bad.

Still debating materials. I am leaning towards silk weft, both because it will add luster and because 20/2 silk is close to the size I want for the weft. 10/2 cotton (same as the warp) will likely be thicker than I want because I will be working with 4-5 wefts and 2 warps per “pixel” of the design.

Another possibility is a silk/cashmere blend which is either 6000 or 7000 yards per pound, a little thinner than I want, but if I can figure out how to juggle 5-6 shuttles, would also allow me to have more weft colors and hence more nuance in the design. The additional cashmere content might add a little peach-fuzziness to the face, which would be nice.

Still thinking over all the variables!

In other news, I have a new keyboard! I have been having finger issues on my right hand, so my friend Morgan gifted me with a Svalboard Lightly, the successor to the Datahand. It’s one of the most unique keyboards out there, and is completely customizable:

Basically, you put your fingers in the finger wells and type by pressing the center button and/or flicking your fingers up, down, left, right. Thumb has four options: knuckle, nail, finger pad, and up. Those by default are either very commonly used keys (space, enter), keys used in combination with other keys (Control, Alt, etc.) or mode-shift keys (shifting the keyboard from alphabet to numbers/symbols).

You can completely customize the fit by sliding and tilting the finger-wells (and moving the palm rests around), and you can also reprogram the keys to whatever you want. I’ve decided to move away from the traditional QWERTY layout and go with a “modern” configuration called DH Neu, which is designed for ease of typing. I’ve also programmed in some single keys to do common commands, e.g. CTRL-C, CTRL-V, CTRL-X, so I don’t have to do combinations.

I’ve only been using it for a little while, and am still learning to type with it, but it’s WAY more comfortable than any other keyboard I’ve used. It’s not cheap, but you have carpal tunnel or other RSI issues from typing, it’s likely a great tool for you. It has helped people avoid surgery.

I’m in the process of installing two trackballs, one on each side, so I never have to remove my hands from the keyboard to mouse about. Most people use the left trackball to scroll and the right trackball to mouse the cursor around – I’m looking forward to exploring them more. I currently switch between an ergonomic mouse (right hand) and a trackball (left hand) because otherwise I develop RSI problems, so this could be a very efficient and comfortable approach for me.

In powerlifting and health news, I’ve dropped eight pounds since setting a new protein target of 150 grams/day. This is recommended if you want to build muscle (0.8-1 gram of protein for every pound body weight), but it also seems to be making me less hungry, so I’m losing about a pound a month without any effort. This is great! But it’s also put me into a different weight class for competition, which means I will need to re-qualify for Worlds in November. So I’ve signed up for a meet in San Diego in late August – there aren’t any locally that would suit.

And I will be FABULOUS for that meet, of course. I’ve ordered a custom Pioneer belt, with an embroidered design on the back. It’s almost done, and I can’t wait! They sent me a picture of the embroidery a few days ago:

The embroidery will be on the back, and the color will go nicely with my red, yellow, and orange wrestling singlet. Hey, if I’m going to look like a squashed sausage in a skin-tight body suit, at least I’ll look like a FABULOUS sausage. Because it’s not a powerlifting meet, daaahhhhling, it’s a fashion show. LOL!

To close, I’ve been experimenting with ice-dyed tie dyes. You tie the shirt, put it on a grid, put powdered dye and soda ash over it, and then pile ice on top. As the ice melts, the dye seeps into the shirt. The colors can “break” into their component parts, giving really interesting results.

Here’s my favorite so far. It may actually be my favorite of all the tie-dyes I’ve ever made. It looks like batik combined with silk painting, but it’s actually an ice-dyed tie dye. The white lines are created by clamping the folded shirt with curved hemostats (a technique I found on YouTube). I’ll definitely be doing more of these!

And, because no blog post would be complete without a cat, here’s the first “take” of the photo. Thanks Fritz!