NAND Gate and NOR Gate
For the final project in our Digital Imagery Course we were given the task to explore the concepts of True and False. I ventured into binary, the number system that uses only 0 and 1 to represent all real numbers. Because of its direct simplicity (0 or 1, on or off, yes or no, true or false) binary is the machine language of choice for most machines requiring circuitry including computers. Circuitry communicates directives by sending true or false messages through logic gates. Logic Gates perform a logical operation on one or more logic inputs and then produces a single logical output. We use Boolean logic to determine mathematically the linear course the logic is going to take.
I've got the simplest inverter in my hand.
In order to render a pattern for a truth table I had to develop a strategy that would make it visibly possible to understand the pattern. A pattern can be understood as a matrix of stitches (columns) and needles (rows); and just as in programming, a pattern can often be repeated many times over and/or inserted into another pattern or combined with several other patterns to achieve an outcome. For this project I used black yarn for 0 and white yarn for 1. I also used red for the edges, mainly to define where the gates begin and end while adding structure to the piece. I also defined my matrix, each 2 rows (one row of knit stitches and one row of purl stitches) as one line of a truth table; each number in a set is represented by 2 stitches (either kk on the knit side or pp on the purl). Each one of these sets when established on a row of knit and row of purl equals one number (either 0 or 1) and is called a knitted element or knitel in reference to a picture element or pixel.
While I was creating these bits of knited binary I was also working on another component of the art piece. A large metal board that I was going to use to display my knitted truth tables in the style of a boolean decision diagram (BDD) holding the yarn elements to the board with magnets (a nod to positive and negative). However when all of my elements were assembled I came to the conclusion that they did no artistic service to each other and were in fact, two separate pieces.
close up of T/F
Full size T/F
This second phase is an 18″ x 24″ metal piece entitled T/F. Materials: metal, magnets, yarn and sewing patterns are combined. The magnet buttons are a nod to Stuart Kaufman’s button analogy, in which he compares self-organizing networks to 10,000 buttons connected with thread. He and his team discovered “that the same rules that govern linked piles of buttons and ultimately the workings of the Web are active in the cells of our own bodies. In simple terms there are a couple of hundred types of human cell because there are a couple of hundred state cycles which are attractors in the network of tens of thousands of genes ineteracting with one another in accordance with the rules of Boolean Logic. As Kaufman himelf puts it “we are the natural expression of a deeper order.” (Philip Tetlow, The Web’s Awake)
All of the images on the buttons are derived from photos of machines that use logic gates in their circuitry. The yarn used is white and black continuing with the true/false theme
the letter F in binary
the letter T in binary
I will be posting a full process paper on this piece shortly. Also the 5th and final cycle of my Daily Creative Acts (DCA) which is also the third phase of this project, is in the final editing stage and will be posted as well. All of my other DCA’s are in posts bellow and you can find all of my process photos in my Flickr gallery. Thanks for looking!
Hi!
