Mika Tajima collaborated with FWM to produce Negative Entropy, a series of six woven acoustic portraits of local Pennsylvania industries that engage with old and new technologies. These objects are images of the condition of their production, and Tajima inscribed the passage of industrial production from physical material to immaterial abstraction in its making.
Tajima recorded sound with FWM staff at several industrial locations that employ textile Jacquard looms (a precursor to digital technology) and computer data centers that constitute the new economic infrastructure. Companies included Edward J. Darby & Son, Inc., Langhorne Carpet Co. Inc., Caledonian Dye Works, Inc., Material Technology & Logistics, Inc., and Philadelphia Technology Park. Orkan Telhan, at the time Assistant Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania, transmuted the sound files into black-andwhite digital spectrogram images using linguistic audio software. Tajima then assigned colors to the waveforms using Illustrator and Photoshop in conjunction with FWM staff. Weaving technician Joy Alaoui, Head Designer at Material Technology & Logistics, developed the woven structure for the image files. Tajima made the final Jacquard woven designs into custom acoustic panels. This body of work served as the beginning of an ongoing series for Tajima.
