Spirit-Infusing

The Pa'O people of Myanmar, a minority group in the eastern highlands, belong to the Shan ethnic branch. In the Pa'O belief system, weaving is regarded as an act of “life creation.” Women are the primary weavers, and during the weaving process, they secretly incorporate herbs, petals, or symbols into the fabric, believing that each thread carries vitality and protection. Once completed, the fabric is hung before the altar in a ritual to “activate” it, imbuing the textile with spiritual and social functions.

This awareness of imbuing threads and patterns with life inspires us, on both cultural and philosophical levels, to think about how procedural systems generate structure: whether it is the complex patterns of handwoven textiles or the ordered sequences of automated devices, both are instances of complexity arising from rules and structures. In the 18th century, the Jacquard loom used punched cards to create repetitive patterns, a process that is logically analogous to programming: the arrangement of threads and holes corresponds to the execution of program instructions, giving the textile pattern a sense of “programmed life.”

During World War II, the programmers of ENIAC were almost entirely women. They were called “computers” and were responsible for manual calculations and program input. In hand weaving, women mastered complex rules and pattern generation; similarly, in early programming, women carried out the core technical and system-building tasks. Grace Hopper played a key role in developing compilers and the concept of the “BUG,” yet her contributions remained largely unrecognized. This history mirrors the role of women in weaving: across both technical and artisanal domains, women have often been central in “giving structure and life,” yet remain underacknowledged.

In the digital era, the intersection of weaving and computation has deepened. In 1991, biologist Thomas Ray created a virtual ecosystem in which digital “organisms” existed as code, capable of replication, mutation, and evolution, laying the foundation for Artificial Life (A-Life) research. This line demonstrates the self-organizing and self-evolving potential of digital life in virtual environments. Another line is neuroscience simulation: the Blue Brain Project (2005–) attempted to model mouse brain neurons down to the synaptic level. Although primarily a scientific goal, researchers described it as “a brain growing inside a computer,” illustrating how rule-based structures can take on life-like qualities in complex systems. Based on neural connectome data from the OpenWorm project, experiments applied simulated neural networks to robot control, exploring how digital life models can interact and exhibit autonomy in the physical world. These examples indicate that through neural simulation, patterns of digital life can be mapped and validated in reality.

In contemporary art, weaving is no longer only a physical practice; it has become an experimental site where information, life, and algorithms intersect. MIT Media Lab’s Weaving Memory project explored how textiles could store and display information through coding. Artists such as Anicka Yi and Heather Dewey-Hagborg combine biological materials (bacteria, DNA) with weaving, programming, and AI to create dynamic, mutable material works. The Cloud Weaving Model integrates AI with indigenous weaving knowledge, emphasizing interaction between humans, materials, and AI as a ritualized, spiritual practice. For instance, in Japan, Nishijin weavers combine AI-generated complex patterns with hand weaving, not only reviving traditional craft but also endowing the fabric with a sense of life, allowing materials to display vitality in both structure and behavior.

This intersection of technology, spirituality, materiality, and algorithm is directly manifested in contemporary artistic practice. At the Pulan old textile mill, in the AI Upgrade Residency, artist Shenlu situates her practice within this historic site: in the former spinning workshops, weaving is reactivated with digital and algorithmic dimensions. She applies weaving techniques to non-biological materials such as optical fibers, combining AI-generated patterns with manual intervention to bring vitality to these otherwise inert media. By combining threads, silk, metal wires, and glass beads, Shenlu initiates a new experiment in “energy language”: algorithms do not merely compute geometric patterns, but seem to perceive and respond to material properties in what she terms an “Enlivening Program.”

Within this residency, the industrial legacy of the old textile mill intertwines with AI logic, transforming weaving from a mere production activity into a synthesis of spirit and technology. Shenlu views weaving as a bridge connecting humans and nature, humans and the universe: when AI participates, the patterns generated by the interaction of algorithms and materials manifest not only visually, but as expressions of energy and relational dynamics. Her practice thus continues and expands the interdisciplinary trajectory from traditional textiles to digital life, demonstrating how threads and algorithms together can cultivate new forms of vitality within a post-industrial context.