Innovation through pixels – conference 2025
From 12–15 August a very special conference took place: Vibeke Vestby, inventor of the Thread Controller TC1 and TC2, celebrated 30 years of this groundbreaking Jacquard weaving system for artists and designers.
I remember the beginning very well. Vibeke Vestby shared my interest in how computers could assist handweavers, and she even wrote about it for our magazine Textile Forum. In the early 1990s, she was a weaving lecturer at the Norwegian College of Art and Design, where she had already done extensive research on computer applications in handweaving. In 1990, she gave a lecture on digital weaving in California, and in the same year received a grant from the Norwegian Ministry of Education, which prioritized projects involving women and traditional crafts. With this support, the first Thread Controller was presented at the German “Talentenbörse” in Spring 1991. Naturally, we reported on this event in Textile Forum (issue 2/91), and I also invited Vibeke to join my Art & Industry project at the Jacquard weaving mill Müller-Zell in Bavaria later that year. Among the participants were some of the very first American artists working with the Jacquard technique: Lia Cook, Cynthia Schira, Pat Kinsella, and Sheila O’Hara.
With further funding, Vibeke developed a new prototype (TC1) in collaboration with Tronrud Engineering. By 1993-94, this was market-ready, and the first loom was sold in 1995. Since then, a newer version (TC2) has been produced, and more than 300 looms have been sold worldwide. Buyers include educational institutes (67%), artists (21%), research and design labs, and companies (4%). The looms are used mostly in Europe (47%), followed by America (34%), Asia (13%), Oceania (5%), and Africa (1%). Although the loom is not exactly cheap (30–60.000 Euro), it is far more affordable than industrial equipment. Increasingly, “maker spaces” now allow artists to rent time on the TC2.
The Conference itself gathered 160 participants. Many of them gave lectures and/or exhibited their work at the hotel where the event took place, some 60 km north of Oslo. The program was thoughtfully organized: the first speakers, among them Vibeke herself, Sarah Mills, Assistant Professor of Art History, USA (TC2: The Concept Loom), Geetika Nautiyal from Digital Weaving Norway, and Christy Matson, also from the US (From Student to Educator to Artist with the TC1 and TC2), offered broad overviews of the loom’s development. Afterwards, many outstanding artists shared their individual journeys! I think that this loom is now very well-known among students and weaver-artists, but it still has potential for the industry that is not yet fully exploited.
I was particularly struck by Dutch designer Hella Jongerius’s work during the Covid period. She made woven pieces of art on the TC2, that were exhibited in the prestigious Gropiusbau (see my blog of 30 June 2021: Hella Jongerius: Woven Cosmos). She explored the loom’s potential for three-dimensionality and even wrote about its architectural applications. Jongerius could not attend the Conference, as she manages her busy Berlin studio. But I would have loved to hear her vision about the sculptural possibilities in the TC2!
Among the artists, Wen-Ying Huang (Taiwan), retired professor and artist, well known for her woven 3D creations, impressed me with her presentation with the title Shaft Weaving Craft Inspires My Journey into the World of Digital Handweaving. Other memorable lectures included:
- Patrice George (Associate Professor, retired, New York) – The Digital Dawn: Woven Textile Technologies from the PC to the TC
- Marianne Fairbanks (Artist and Professor, University of Wisconsin) – Exploding the Grid: Methods of Construction and Subversion
- Janice Lessman-Moss (Professor Emeritus, Kent State University) – Binography, telling about her impressive artistic journey
Equally important were the educators:
- Cathryn Amidei (USA) – Reading Signals in the Matrix
- Monika Zaltkauskaité Grasienè (Associate Professor, Vilnius Academy, Lithuania) – The Intelligence of the Thread: Textile that Preserves our Humanity
- Philippa Brock, artist and educator from Central Saint Martins, UK – Woven Futures
- Lucia Schwalenberg (Designer, journalist, and lecturer at the University of Osnabrück, Germany) – presented her doctoral research The Beiderwandweberei Meldorf as a Place of Textile Memory
This is only a glimpse of the many thought-provoking contributions we enjoyed during those remarkable two days!
The accompanying exhibition was outstanding, proving that although all the artists use the same loom, their results are strikingly diverse. At the dawn of the digital weaving era, many feared that computer assistance would lead to uniformity. Quite the opposite has happened – the new tools have multiplied the possibilities for individual expression.
What was new to me, and very exciting, were the “maker spaces”- laboratories equipped with TC2 looms that can be rented for working time. One such example is Lottozero in Prato, Italy, founded by two sisters including Arianna Moroder, who spoke under the title Dream Big! Reviving Tradition, Innovating the Future: Lottozero’s Textile Journey. I hope to visit this institution and similar ones in the future, as they are vital to spreading access to the TC2.
All in all, I experienced two enriching days filled with stimulating talks, inspiring exhibitions, and the joy of reconnecting with old and new friends. The event was so well organized that it would be wonderful to see it repeated in the coming years. Nothing compares to seeing textile art from all over the world and hearing the artists themselves speak about their work.
For those who missed it there is a book/catalogue Digital Weaving – Innovation through Pixels, featuring all the works from the exhibition. It is available from Digital Weaving Norway, Tronrud Engineering Moss: www.digitalweaving.no,www.tronrudmoss.no ISBN 978-82-303-7071-1 Price € 40
Beatrijs Sterk
25.August.2025 Hannover
