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October 27, 2024
The Pentium as a Navajo Weaving
["Replica of a Chip", created by Marilou Schultz, 1994. Wool. Photo taken at the National Gallery of Art, 2024.]
From the website:
Hurrying through the National Gallery of Art five minutes before closing, I passed a Navajo weaving with a complex abstract pattern.
Suddenly, I realized the pattern was strangely familiar, so I stopped and looked closely.
[Comparison of the Pentium weaving (flipped vertically) with a Pentium die photo. Original die photo from Intel.]
The design turned out to be an image of Intel's Pentium chip, the start of the long-lived Pentium family.
The weaver, Marilou Schultz, created the artwork in 1994 using traditional materials and techniques.
The rug was commissioned by Intel as a gift to AISES (American Indian Science & Engineering Society) and is currently part of an art exhibition — Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction — focusing on the intersection between abstract art and woven textiles.
[The Pentium weaving, flipped and marked with the chip floorplan.]
[via Ken Sherriff's blog]
October 27, 2024 at 12:01 PM | Permalink
Comments
I saw this Navajo mat, and I thought, "Hey, that makes a great idea for a post-apocalyptic story. Navajos weaving printed circuit mats from ancient blueprints." I moved my cursor to Comment and raised my finger to click when a wee voice whispered in my head, "Wait." From experiences bitter and sweet, I learned to heed to that wee voice. I moved on without comment.
These same experiences taught me that a sleep will unlock the memories the wee voice knows that I do not. So I slept on my idea.
This morning, I opened my browser and my start pages cascaded into the frame. I worked through tabs to bookofjoe where the wee voice whispered, "A Canticle for Leibowitz."
Lo! and behold! My idea was written decades ago by Walter M Miller, Jr. He used illuminated copies of circuit blueprints vice Navajo blankets, but the idea is the same.
I was right. It did make a great idea for a post-apocalyptic story.
Posted by: antares | Oct 28, 2024 8:41:39 PM
