12 March – 29 August 2027 · Gallery 3
Soft Machines
Knitting, weaving and the robots that learned from them
Jacquard looms were the first programmable machines. Five artists take the thread back: knitted circuits, woven code and a loom that improvises.
Before computers had screens, they had punch cards, and the punch cards came from weaving. The Jacquard loom of 1804 read patterns from a chain of cards; a century and a half later, programmers were still using the same idea.
Soft Machines brings five artists back to the loom. There is a knitted circuit board that really works, a tapestry that records the gallery's footfall, and a loom that improvises its own pattern every afternoon at 15:00.
Visitors can try a small hand loom in the gallery. Please ask an invigilator.
Admission: Free