[MUSIC PLAYING]
We aren't making enough in Trinidad and Tobago. We value the ability to consume more than we value the ability to create. We are consuming, and we need to make. We need to make, make, and make some more. We need to become makers first, and consumers second.
You are listening to WREK Atlanta, and this is Lost in the Stacks, the Research Library Rock'n'Roll Radio Show. I'm Charlie Bennett in the studio with Marlee Givens and Fred Rascoe, who is on the board. Each week on Lost in the Stacks, we pick a theme, and then use it to create a mix of music and library talk. Whichever you are here for, we hope you dig it.
Today's episode asked the question, why is wire bending in the library? The wire bending we're asking about is-- and I'm quoting the academic work of one of our guests-- "the dying undocumented craft of wire bending in the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival."
There is an exhibit of design scholarship and wire bending history in the Georgia Tech Library right now called Design and Making in the Trinidad Carnival: Histories, Reimaginations, and Speculations of Computational Design, a Futures. CHARLIE BENNETT: That's a mouthful. It is. To find out more, though, we spoke to the curator of the exhibit, along with the library's exhibitions program manager.
So my first guess is that wire bending is in the library because of making, and design, preserving history, good old-fashioned educational context. Am I on the right track?
I think that's a pretty good first guess.
Sounds good to me. Our songs today are about wires, match, lines, and carnivals. And since the Carnival in Trinidad and Tobago is what started our guest down her scholarly and artistic path, we'll likewise start today's music set with the festive Carnival Time by Al Johnson, right here on Lost in the Stacks.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
That's Carnival Time, by Al Johnson. And I got to admit, I'm kind of in the mood to just go find a Carnival now where they're all drinking wine. But, no, let's forge ahead. This is Lost in the Stacks. And today's show is called Why is Wire Bending in the Library? Our guests are Dr. Vernelle Noel and Kirk Henderson. Dr. Noel is a design scholar and director of the Situated Computation and Design Lab here at Georgia Tech.
Mr. Henderson is the exhibits program manager at the Georgia Tech Library, where he manages and catalogs collections, as well as developing and designing exhibitions.
We began our interview by asking Dr. Noel about the Trinidad Carnival.
The Trinidad Carnival-- or the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival-- it's previously written as Trinidad Carnival because the Carnival started before we were Trinidad and Tobago. But it's Trinidad and Tobago Carnival. Carnival started in around the 1780s, it came to Trinidad.
But in the 1830s, in 1834, in particular, when slavery was abolished in Trinidad, those formerly enslaved, redesigned-- used the carnival to celebrate their freedom, to celebrate their aesthetic sensibilities, to celebrate their creativity. So while Carnival before that was very European, it was primarily about fun and frolic.
Those formerly enslaved now used it to highlight all these things and to showcase their humanity in the face of these colonial and other systems that attempted to erase their humanity.
When I was reading about it, someone wrote that it said that residents are either in Carnival, thinking about the next Carnival, or talking about the last Carnival. Is it that serious? Is it that fundamental to the life?
It is. And even for those who don't participate, it is. It happens every year. It's guaranteed, outside of a pandemic. We missed a year because of the pandemic. But it is because as soon as Carnival ends, preparation for the other one begins because designers and makers have to think about what they're going to bring forward for the Carnival. The government has to think about funding, about marketing. So it really does start as soon as it finishes.
They may get a week off, but you're always thinking about Carnival. Those who engage in it every year feel in their bones when Carnival is coming. The entire country's spirit, the feel of things, it's [INAUDIBLE] in preparation for it.
And it seems to echo Mardi Gras in that it is a community that creates decorations of costumes, vehicles, and just show off for a while. Is that how it goes? VERNELLE NOEL: Absolutely, absolutely. So the three Carnivals, I would say, coming out of that are the Trinidad Carnival, Mardi Gras, and Brazil's Carnival. I still have to carry out research on those two other Carnivals.
But the Trinidad Carnival, what sets it apart from the others, include one, music, so calypso and soca music, which is unique to the Trinidad Carnival, which as you know, has spread throughout the world. So the Trinidad Carnival doesn't mean it's only practiced in Trinidad and Tobago, but it's practiced globally. So it's the calypso or soca music, the steel pan, or steel drum that was invented in Trinidad and Tobago in the 1930s, and our masquerade, which many Carnivals have.
In terms of Brazil, the Trinidad Carnival, we don't have floats, which I think also happens in Mardi Gras, where there are these vehicles carrying people and costuming. But instead, people actually perform and wear these large dancing sculptures. CHARLIE BENNETT: So tell me how it began to become a research concern for you, how you started to apply an academic eye to Carnival.
I always loved it. I grew up-- my parents would carry me. Then I got to a certain age, and I didn't want to go anymore. Then when I got older again, I was like, wow, this is pretty cool. CHARLIE BENNETT: That sounds familiar.
[LAUGHS]
Right, that was too many of us.
You were a teenager jaded with Carnival.
[LAUGHTER]
Exactly, exactly. And at some point, I began enjoying it. I never participated in terms of playing it. I would always go look at it. I was very much a fan of looking at the events. And when I got to architecture school, it started in my-- for my thesis that year I did a parliament where it was attempting to theorize calypso and soca music through architecture. But the Carnival kept calling me.
And so when I did my graduate studies, which was a research degree, I knew that I wanted it to be something involved in Carnival. I was learning about computing, and technologies, and design. And I wanted to apply or think through it within the context of the Trinidad Carnival. So that, I knew. But what I was going to do, I did not know. And so I went home. I'm from Trinidad and Tobago, in case I forgot to mention that.
I went home to do fieldwork to figure out what's the lay of the land, what's happening. And within that is when I discovered this issue, this problem of this potential dying practice of wire bending embedded in the Trinidad Carnival. And in my research-- conducting research, literature, et cetera-- there's a lot of scholarship to Trinidad Carnival. But some of the-- let's say-- highlighting of problems, scholars haven't looked at it through the lens of design.
So there are people looking at it through the lens of economics, through the lens of gender, through the lens of society, culture. But what I was seeing was, one, that there are problems in design, and how my design lens might uncover what those problems are, and attempt to provide solutions, come up with questions, understand things better, et cetera. So that's how I academically got involved.
You mentioned there's no floats in the Trinidad Carnival, but I guess costumes are a very important point, which is-- and I think that's what you're talking about when you're talking about wire bending is the construction of those costumes. Can you talk a little bit about the costumes and Carnival?
Sure, so historically-- and I use that word knowing that I'm really not saying anything by using that word to some degree-- but pre-- let's say-- up to the '90s, costumes were very-- what is the word-- articulate, well-constructed. And many of the literature from the 19-- I think-- '30s, I could be wrong-- but when describing costuming, it talks about how intricate and detailed the construction of these costumes were and are.
And there was a bikini and beads aesthetic that was happening in the Carnival. So for example, when you think of Brazil's Carnival, part of it the costume is feathers, bikinis, beads, et cetera. That's what I mean by bikini and beads aesthetic. And so I wanted to understand why that aesthetic was happening in our Carnival. And so my guess was because of the dying of our making practices, that one of them being wire bending.
So wire bending was used to make costumes, but also the large, what I call, dancing sculptures, which are one person performed them for competition, et cetera. They could be 20, 30-feet tall. But these are large sculptures that people dance and perform. They're, in my mind, at the scale of architecture, which is also why I'm interested.
But that is what wire bending is used for, for costuming-- or it was used for costuming-- but also some of its principles and techniques were used to make these large dancing sculptures. CHARLIE BENNETT: Our guests today are Dr. Vernelle Noel of Georgia Tech's School of Architecture, and Kirk Henderson of the Georgia Tech Library.
This is Lost in the Stacks. We'll be back with more about wire bending after a music set.
File the set under GT 4229.T7T76.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) Jumps on Carnival, Carnival, jumps on.
[BRASS BAND MUSIC PLAYING]
That was History of Carnival by Attila the Hun. And music supervisor, if you'll make sure your mic-- yeah, what's this Raymond Quevedo thing?
Oh, that's Attila the Hun. It's not actually like Attila the Hun from history class.
I was worried.
That's a name.
I was worried. I didn't know how many people had been killed for History of Carnival.
Stage name of Raymond Quevedo.
OK, cool, before that, Carnival Drum Song by Lancelot Layne. Those were songs about Trinidad Carnival by artists from Trinidad and Tobago.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
And you know what? I should add, Carnival Monday is February 20th this year, 2023, just in case you were wondering.
Good timing for this show, then. This is Lost in the Stacks. And today's show asks the question, why is wire bending in the library? We're speaking with design scholar Dr. Vernelle Noel, and exhibits program manager of the Georgia Tech Library, Kirk Henderson.
So in the last segment, we introduced the concept of wire bending. And I have seen the exhibit, and it's extraordinary, the fine detail up to these structures. Can you talk about how you got from being interested in wire bending in an academic or research way to the actual construction of your own-- are they wire-bent structures? What would be the proper noun for them?
Good question. So the first question, how I got interested in the wire bending part?
Yeah, in particular, yeah.
Sure, so after seeing news articles expressing that this craft is dying, when I went to Trinidad, I conducted interviews and did site visits at what we call mass camps, which are places where people design and make costuming for the Carnival. So it involved fieldwork with interviewing people, examining artifacts, et cetera, to get a sense of what was happening.
And in several of those site visits in my fieldwork, I visited Stephen Derek, who was an expert wire bender, Albert Bailey, who was an expert wire bender, and interviewed them about the craft, interviewed them about their techniques, took photos of their techniques, their artifacts, drew the tools and steps they were using.
And so a great part of that wire bending knowledge on my first attempt to address that problem of wire bending knowledge not being passed on was developing a computational tool, a grammar, which described the materials, the steps, and the computational rules for that craft so that it could be shared, it could be passed on, it could be used for education, for practice, et cetera. And so by doing that, I also learned-- practiced the craft. I'm no expert. I call myself a philosophical wire bender.
But those are the techniques that I practiced, tested, and used technological approaches-- so software, digital fabrication, et cetera-- to think of new ways of thinking about the craft beyond the traditional practice, so how we think using technology in ways that broaden how we define the practice that would also include technological means and processes.
Our exhibit in the library is maybe a history, or a rendering, of years and years and years of research and work. This has been-- there's been a lot going on here. Did you have the exhibit in your mind when you came to the library? Or did our other guest, Kirk, start working with you right away to develop the exhibit? Tell me about the purposes and the process with the exhibit.
Sure, so I won a Graham Foundation Grant, which supported work, and an exhibition is what I wanted to do. And so when I got to Georgia Tech, I had to have-- part of the grant was making sure that I had a space to house the exhibition. And I reached out to many in architecture, eventually met Kirk for us to discuss the library space as the place that the exhibition would take place. And that's where I met Kirk for the first time.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Kirk, can you give us your first impressions of the work when you were drawn into this process?
Well, the way we usually start these kinds of projects is that the person who will be the curator, or the project-- the person who drives the project comes to us with a proposal. We have them kind of make a pitch in a standardized format to understand, what will this be about? How will you do it? What are the audiences that will be brought into the exhibit? And how does this align with align with Georgia Tech's intellectual goals and the library's goals too?
And what we saw in Vernelle's proposal is something that really made sense to us. And our exhibits program is still in its early stages. And Vernelle's exhibit is one of the second exhibits-- only the second exhibit, I think, that we've actually had a guest curator be in charge of that. And so what we saw in Vernelle's exhibit was a way to amplify her research, and to explore the cultural connections that were a part of her research.
And when I say, "amplify her research," one of our objectives in the exhibits that we do in the library is not only to showcase unique, special collections, materials that the library or the archives holds, but also to feature our faculty, our students who are doing research at Georgia Tech.
And Vernelle's exhibit was unique and interesting in that it was an example of showcasing her research, how she had taken a great deal of time and effort to explore the topic of wire bending, the relationship to the culture that it came out of, but also connected really in a social history way to that culture. And so it was an exhibit that had all kinds of potentials to have different facades of what it was looking at.
Part of it is academic, abstracting the forms and the way that things were made into digital media, which is all about Georgia Tech. But it also looked at the people who began this craft and really were experimenters and designers who were working outside of a formal education in design, and architecture, and those kinds of things, but doing things that were meaningful. So the exhibit made all kinds of sense in terms of what we thought we could bring into it.
And, again, our role in this kind of case is to facilitate the production of the exhibit, and to guide, and support, and lend resources where resources are needed.
So to finish off the segment-- we're running out of time here-- can you remember one particular problem or question that you had to answer in creating the exhibit?
I think we were a pretty good team in terms of-- because one of the other aspects that I'll mention in terms of Vernelle's practice is that we were doing an exhibit about making and craft. And part of doing an exhibit is also thinking-- doing problem solving-- about making things, and crafting things, and whether you're going to have it done.
Oh, no, it's [INAUDIBLE]..
Or you have to make it yourself. And so one of the goals that Vernelle had was, you have these unique sculptural elements that are basically wire forms, three-dimensional linear, formal form structures, and that one way to broaden the experience of those kinds of things is the way you can light them because those linear forms create shadows that create a broader dimensionality to what the artifact is doing.
And so that was one thing that we worked hard on to try and figure out ways to do that, and to do it within the budget that we had, and the constraints that we had in terms of the space that we were building this in.
Yeah, I noticed that there's a note that repeats throughout the exhibit, watch how this interacts with the light, which I found pretty compelling. Was there anything else that you felt like you had to tell the exhibit viewer to give them an explanation, something that they might not have thought about when it came to the exhibit?
VERNELLE NOEL: For me, setting up the timeline of the exhibit-- or the timeline of the entire thing from both ends-- was important, and the opening the outside of the exhibition, some ability to see about the Carnival, or the things that I'm talking about in the Carnival, then going in, understanding the timeline.
I think what's important for me here is in all of our discussions-- in my research and in the exhibition-- in all our discussions about technology, let's not forget the histories and the cultures from which these things come from. Because sometimes, we truncate history, and we start from today when all the hard work of these histories, these contentions, all these social things that make things survive or not are hidden.
And I always want to make sure that we never forget the faces, the people, the names that these things come from. CHARLIE BENNETT: Our guests today are Dr. Vernelle Noel of Georgia Tech's School of Architecture and Kirk Henderson of the Georgia Tech Library.
You're listening to Lost in the Stacks, and we'll talk more about wires and lines on the left side of the hour.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) 1, 2, 1, 2, 3.
Hi, I'm Joelle Dietrick, and I'm an artist that makes work about moving around. You are listening to Lost in the Stacks on WREK Atlanta. (SINGING) When you were a child, you were touched by the muse. And she said, you're on fire from your head to your shoes.
Today's show is called, "Why is Wire Bending in the Library?" Dr. Vernelle Noel, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Architecture, curated the library exhibit, Design and Making in the Trinidad Carnival: Histories, Reimaginations, and Speculations of Computational Design Futures. This is from the program for that exhibit, written by Dr. Noel. "Line as corporeal movement. Most cultures carry their histories, memories, creativity, and emotions in their bodies.
The Western move to separate mind from body, thinking from doing, has influenced the erasure of bodily expression, emotion, and contributed to the dehumanization of individuals and communities. I challenge this separation and erasure, as wire benders think with and through their bodies, while making creative expressions in wire." File this set under RK 527.N35.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
That was Walking Wires by High Vis, kind of resonated with you a little bit, Charlie, right?
A lot with me.
And before that, another of Charlie's favorites, Down to the Wire by Neil Young-- I guess, technically, Buffalo Springfield. But, anyway--
[LAUGHTER]
--those were songs about the vitality--
Stephen Stills is so mad at you right now.
--of wires.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Lost in the Stacks. And today's show asks the question, why is wire bending in the library? We're speaking with a design scholar, Dr. Vernelle "Nowell" ["EWW" SOUND] Dr. Vernelle Noel. I knew I was going to do that.
This is what happens when we write it out.
I know.
The script will get you.
I know. And exhibits program manager, Kirk Henderson. CHARLIE BENNETT: Vernelle and Kirk are discussing the Georgia Tech Library exhibit, Design and Making in the Trinidad Carnival: Histories, Reimaginations, and Speculations of Computational Design Futures. When you look at the exhibit, do you see a story? Do you see a class, a here's an instruction session? Do you see an experience? How do you frame it for yourself what you're doing with the exhibit?
KIRK HENDERSON: One of the things, I think, that when we do an exhibit is, sometimes there's a particular story that we want to tell, that there's a narrative there. And I think we invoke that to a certain extent in the timeline and the framework that there's a culture and a practice out of which all of this has grown. And so that's one side of it that's very much connecting to a narrative.
And on a different perspective, one of the things that I think the exhibit accomplishes and that it asks the viewer is less about a story and more about a seeing, how things are seen, and the idea of the fundamental element that is the line being this-- it's the start of everything. You draw lines on a piece of paper, and you draw them in a certain way. And eventually, you say, this is how you build something that is shelter or a place to meet.
And so I think it's interesting the way Vernelle and the exhibit asks people to look at the line, to think anew, or think more deeply about what do lines do? They're everywhere in our culture. I mean, the typography that we read and what we write is a set of a certain kind of lines. And so you could make all kinds of arguments about the fundamental nature of the line.
And I think one thing, one opportunity, an exhibit context offers is to create a space in which to just meditate on what you may see every day, but you don't necessarily think deeply about every day.
And I saw that you gave the attendees-- the exhibit goers-- a way to tell you what they think. You have a prompt in there. I don't want to ruin a surprise, so I'll just say there's a way that people can tell you what they think in response to these questions about lines. Where did that come from? And what do you want to do with those responses?
Sure, with that, so I'm obsessed with lines, as might be clear from the exhibition, I'm not sure.
[LAUGHTER]
So I love lines. But as Kirk touched on, it's a way, I think, for us to think together, and interdisciplinarily to think conceptually and otherwise, to think corporately. And so what I'm going to do with them, one, I want people to actually think about these questions because sometimes you don't think about something unless you're asked, but also to get an understanding of how people might think about lines, move through lines, what they might say about lines. It interests me, just interests me.
Lines are just the coolest thing ever.
Well, now I have to ask you, Kirk, has your conceptual idea of a line been challenged? Is there anything that you're taking from this? KIRK HENDERSON: Well, one of the ways that I think about this idea of the line-- and I think I was hinting at it when I was talking there before about, oh, there's this structural element that's the baseline baseline. It's a starter point for a lot of stuff.
And being something of a musician myself, I liken it to like in music, the idea of pitch and sound is this fundamental-- the idea of pitch and sound is this fundamental element of that's where you start from. And from that base, you build all this stuff. In sound, you create pitch. You create harmony. You create rhythm. Other things emerge from that fundamental element of, it's a sound, it's a pitch.
And I think in the visual and physical world, I liken-- lines are in the same category of, well, that's the starter kit. You draw more of them, you get something else. You join them together in particular ways. You say that these lines represent something that's three-dimensional. Then you continually increase the complexity and interest of what's going on. And then you're actually able to fashion things that you need, like shelter, or a way to fly airplanes, and things like that.
[CHUCKLES]
So I mean, that's kind of-- I guess, maybe it's my own perspective of, oh, I see what's going on here. The line is like this to the physical and visual world where as to the audio aural world, pitch and sound, and taking those down, and then creating a set of notation, just build other structures, you get music. So they're both in a category-- I hate to say the word "building blocks," because they're not blocks because you need to draw several lines.
[LAUGHTER]
Nice. Unfortunately, we're running out of time. So I want to finish with a very particular detail of the exhibit, if you can talk a little bit about the note cards that are displayed in the exhibit. They're very compelling black ink drawings, and text, and doodles, and that kind of thing. And there's a lot of them. And it seems like it's just a tiny glimpse into some kind of history of work. So what's going on with the note cards?
Yeah, so I have several of them, hundreds of them. What's exhibited are but just a few. And they speak to my-- when did I start them? I'm a drawer. So I've been drawing for years. It's my creative outlet. Outside of writing and thinking, I need expression. And I started doing the notecards, I feel like it could have been 2014. I started doing notecards because they were just small enough that every day I could engage in a creative practice.
And depending on what was happening that day or that month, I could also express my thoughts on the notecards. And they would be in the form of lines, as you would have seen, some structured, some unstructured, some discussing certain topics, my love of writing numbers. So it's really all they were were a short snippet of an ability for me to express my creativity, my creative juices that keeps me going while reading, writing, and making. And it was a way for me to share with the world also.
So I would take photos of them, and post on Instagram. But I have hundreds of them. And that's what the note cards are about. So what I chose to exhibit were around certain matters I think that need to be brought to the fore, but also so that viewers can get a sense of how these cards, these lines, connect to my daily need for creative expression. CHARLIE BENNETT: Our guests today are Dr. Vernelle Noel and Kirk Henderson.
Dr. Noel is a design scholar and director of the Situated Computation and Design Lab here at Georgia Tech. Mr. Henderson is the exhibit's program manager at the Georgia Tech Library, where he manages and catalogs collections, as well as developing and designing exhibitions.
This is Lost in the Stacks. And it is time for some music.
Yes, it is.
So file this set under N72.F45K57.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
You've been listening to the song Wichita Lineman by Glen Campbell. Before that, you heard Bold Lines by Shagreen. And we started our set with Draggin' the Line by Tommy James and the Shondells.
I like how you put a little spin on that one.
Oh, yeah, songs about being obsessed with lines.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Today's show-- boy, it's 1:00 already. Today's show is called "Why is Wire Bending in the Library?" And it sounds like Marlee had it right at the beginning of the show, making and design, preserving history, and good old-fashioned educational context.
I do sometimes get things right.
[LAUGHTER]
The exhibit is called Design and Making in the Trinidad Carnival: Histories, Reimaginings, and Speculations of Computational Design Futures. And you can find it in the exhibit gallery on the first floor of the Price Gilbert Memorial Library through February, 2023. You can find out more online at Dr. Noel's website vaanoel.com. That's V for Vernelle, double-A, Noel-dot-com.
And with that, let's roll the credits.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MARLEE GIVENS: Lost in the Stacks is a collaboration between WREK Atlanta and the Georgia Tech Library, written and produced by Charlie Bennett, Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens. Legal counsel and some very fancy bikini and bead costumes were provided by the Burrus Intellectual Property Law Group in Atlanta, Georgia.
Special Thanks to Vernelle and Kirk for being on the show, to all the wire benders past, present, and future. And thanks, as always, to each and every one of you for listening.
You can find us online at LostintheStacks.org. And you can subscribe to our podcast anywhere. It's all over the place. Podcasts are everywhere. We know that.
On the next Lost in the Stacks, a triumphant return to the studio by our attorney, who will-- we think-- will advise us to drive at top speed.
Maybe he'll bring some of those bikini and bead things. It's time for our last song today. And we're going to close with another calypso legend from Trinidad. It's an artist that's also frequently passed on the culture and knowledge of his homeland through his music, like in our final track of the day. This is No Place Like the West Indies by Lord Invader, right here on Lost in the Stacks. Have a great weekend, everybody.
[MUSIC PLAYING]