Kanchipuram Saris and Thinking Machines(altermag.com)
altermag.com
Kanchipuram Saris and Thinking Machines
https://altermag.com/articles/kanchipuram-saris-and-thinking-machines
48 comments
That was a pretty fun article. Nice use of parallax scrolling and everything.
An amusing personal connection is that my wife wore a sari for our wedding (I'm from Chennai) and I wore a sherwani that she, a graphic designer, designed with Dall-E's assistance. A friend of ours knows an embroiderer in Bangalore who then put the design to the coat. Loved it, to be honest: https://x.com/arjie/status/1855328068883353665
Saris (not quite from Kanchipuram - American fabric) and Thinking Machines!
An amusing personal connection is that my wife wore a sari for our wedding (I'm from Chennai) and I wore a sherwani that she, a graphic designer, designed with Dall-E's assistance. A friend of ours knows an embroiderer in Bangalore who then put the design to the coat. Loved it, to be honest: https://x.com/arjie/status/1855328068883353665
Saris (not quite from Kanchipuram - American fabric) and Thinking Machines!
This started decently enough and then the author went all over the place. I'm not sure why detailed explanations of neural nets and smart contracts were needed here. It really feels like trying to ram in a tech solution for what is effectively a market/social problem.
Using computers to aid in designing is not specific to Kanchipuram saris. While I realize people always approach it from the POV of saving a dying art, I'm unsure if K.saris can really fall under that umbrella. Clearly the demand is there and the issues here arise due to inefficient and possibly corrupt market practices rather than the art itself dying. A lot of space was used to explain the lopsided economics on the supply side but there's not enough attention paid to the demand side and the marketplace dynamics.
Using computers to aid in designing is not specific to Kanchipuram saris. While I realize people always approach it from the POV of saving a dying art, I'm unsure if K.saris can really fall under that umbrella. Clearly the demand is there and the issues here arise due to inefficient and possibly corrupt market practices rather than the art itself dying. A lot of space was used to explain the lopsided economics on the supply side but there's not enough attention paid to the demand side and the marketplace dynamics.
My immediate thought is that if automation is really needed for the preservation of traditional patterns, then the right tool for the job is not unreliable, only probably approximately correct, generative AI approaches like GANs and Diffusion models, but Good, Old-Fashioned, symbolic AI approaches widely used today for procedural asset generation in the games industry like L-Systems or texture synthesis algorithms and Wave Function Collapse.
Wave Function Collapse in particular is itself based on convolutions, like CNNs, to preserve translational invariance, but it also preserves equivariance by means of a constraint satisfaction procedure. It's cool stuff and dirt cheap compared to training a CNN from scratch*.
_______________
* On anything but ImageNet/CIFAR 10.
Wave Function Collapse in particular is itself based on convolutions, like CNNs, to preserve translational invariance, but it also preserves equivariance by means of a constraint satisfaction procedure. It's cool stuff and dirt cheap compared to training a CNN from scratch*.
_______________
* On anything but ImageNet/CIFAR 10.
This is a greatly researched article, and the site is just awesome!
Kanchipuram Saree has a rich history, and I learned so much more by reading this article.
I am intrigued by the Kanchipuram saree and have dreamed about owning one. The digital ledger is a unique idea – if authenticity is established, it would be easy to invest in this as art piece.
Kanchipuram Saree has a rich history, and I learned so much more by reading this article.
I am intrigued by the Kanchipuram saree and have dreamed about owning one. The digital ledger is a unique idea – if authenticity is established, it would be easy to invest in this as art piece.
You don't need a digital ledger - these are ODOP goods [0] so it's fairly straigtforward to identify authenticity based on the wholeseller's GI tag [1].
GI Tagging for ODOP products is taken extremely seriously as the products associated with ODOP tend to be associated with locally powerful khadi cooperatives and because this is a personal project of Modi and Shah as they started their political careers in Khadi Cooperatives and Amit Shah is the Cooperation (as in Cooperatives and Khadi) Minister, so complaints tend to be taken seriously. Additionally, textile cooperatives are extremely important in TN as well, and the TN government closely enforces it's GIs as well as building their own e-commerce platform and showrooms for selling cooperative goods [2].
[0] - https://www.investindia.gov.in/one-district-one-product
[1] - https://kancheepuram.nic.in/about-district/gi-tag-product-ka...
[2] - https://www.cooptex.com/
GI Tagging for ODOP products is taken extremely seriously as the products associated with ODOP tend to be associated with locally powerful khadi cooperatives and because this is a personal project of Modi and Shah as they started their political careers in Khadi Cooperatives and Amit Shah is the Cooperation (as in Cooperatives and Khadi) Minister, so complaints tend to be taken seriously. Additionally, textile cooperatives are extremely important in TN as well, and the TN government closely enforces it's GIs as well as building their own e-commerce platform and showrooms for selling cooperative goods [2].
[0] - https://www.investindia.gov.in/one-district-one-product
[1] - https://kancheepuram.nic.in/about-district/gi-tag-product-ka...
[2] - https://www.cooptex.com/
Your information about tagging is relevant and useful---and a valid critique of the techno-solutionsim espoused by the piece. Words that could have been spent on talking about the incredible technology that handlooms actually are.
But keep the votebank politics out of this man. Every political leader in the history of the country has espoused such kinship and love for the handicraft. Their reasons are their own.
Khadi and handicrafts have been political since before the beginning of the republic of India.
Besides, cooperatives are well-known mechanisms to launder money, and their politically "clean" image is why they are a favourite laundry of politicians.
But keep the votebank politics out of this man. Every political leader in the history of the country has espoused such kinship and love for the handicraft. Their reasons are their own.
Khadi and handicrafts have been political since before the beginning of the republic of India.
Besides, cooperatives are well-known mechanisms to launder money, and their politically "clean" image is why they are a favourite laundry of politicians.
Yeah. If anything, Modi/Shah would probably burn those co-operatives to the ground if they could. Tamil Nadu hates the BJP.
No. Same feedback to you, as to alephnerd. Don't feed the beast.
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
ref: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The sad part? This is just one piece of heritage among countless which have already been lost or haven't got a voice to save them. Just like Kancheepuram, nearly every district has a rich heritage in cuisine and fabric which is hundreds of years old. A lot of it was just lost to history because it became commercially nonviable to preserve and so much of it is disappearing in front of our eyes while we do nothing :(
Hundreds ? You must be joking.
Small multiples of a 100 are like a new flashy upstarts in the block as far as Indian traditional art goes.
Small multiples of a 100 are like a new flashy upstarts in the block as far as Indian traditional art goes.
lol what even is this article. Embedding a chip into sari so that someone from New York can get whole "biography" of sari, and hence this blockchain adaptation will mitigate economic distress in India by owning the Hermes style of "handcraft" consumerism?
> Yet, the market for "Indian Luxury" is booming globally. We see European houses acting as colonial curators of Indian heritage: Prada rebranding the Kolhapuri chappal for ₹84,500 ($930); Gucci selling the common kurta as an 'exotic kaftan' for the price of a small car; and Dior releasing a ₹18,180,000 ($200,000) coat dripping in Lucknowi Mukaish work without a whisper of credit to the artisans. The global appetite for the aesthetic is ravenous. But in Kanchipuram, the very hands that feed this hunger are vanishing.
The Western colonial imperial system never truly went away, it simply morphed into an opaque inscrutable machinery to make it palatable to its own highly refined taste. An empire of human rights.
The Western colonial imperial system never truly went away, it simply morphed into an opaque inscrutable machinery to make it palatable to its own highly refined taste. An empire of human rights.
I find it silly and patronising to call this colonialism.
Colonialism is when globalism? Much of Indians have no problem (I assume) with this.
Colonialism is when globalism? Much of Indians have no problem (I assume) with this.
Don't assume pls. I'd say "ask", and you can just ask AI if you're short on time to find a Indian with sufficient humility to answer cautiously
It will tell you Indians aren't monolithic, and artisans certainly DO mind (while elite or others might not, bc they are ignorant like you or I). It will also tell you that India has "geographical indication (GI) protections for crafts like Kanchipuram silk, Banarasi sarees, and Chanderi fabric specifically to prevent this kind of appropriation".
While an Indian "joe on the street", might not have an opinion, the slower and deliberate machinery of government (which is elected to protect interests of the Indian people) certainly has a problem with such things, and might gladly refer to colonialist tendencies.
Ask a human or an AI yourself, if you care enough to learn rather than just offer a confident take
It will tell you Indians aren't monolithic, and artisans certainly DO mind (while elite or others might not, bc they are ignorant like you or I). It will also tell you that India has "geographical indication (GI) protections for crafts like Kanchipuram silk, Banarasi sarees, and Chanderi fabric specifically to prevent this kind of appropriation".
While an Indian "joe on the street", might not have an opinion, the slower and deliberate machinery of government (which is elected to protect interests of the Indian people) certainly has a problem with such things, and might gladly refer to colonialist tendencies.
Ask a human or an AI yourself, if you care enough to learn rather than just offer a confident take
It's India's State and Local Governments are promoting this - most artisans that manufacturing these goods are doing so as part of a cooperative as Khadi and MSME Cooperatives is a major pillar for Indian politics and economic development, along with One District One Product [0] in order to build a heritage consumer goods industry similar to what Japan did.
It's also something that is deeply personal for Narendra Modi and Amit Shah [1] as they started their political careers climbing up the cooperative ladder - they were able to turn Gujarat from being a Congress only state to a BJP only state by co-opting cooperatives in the dairy industry [2]. And in Kancheepuram's case it's an extremely important industry in TN.
Furthemore, if Prada or Chanel buys Indian heritage artisan goods and gives it the luxury veneer, it helps MSMEs and khadi cooperatives demand better terms when wholesaling light manufactured products.
Finally, at a personal level, much of my family is associated with Khadi and Cooperative industries - they are one of the only ways to build medium or even high value industries while giving participants some degree of agency. The profits of khadi goods being sold at high margins ends up in the hands of cooperative members and cooperatives tend to re-invest in capacity building or subsidizing new entrants. This is why you see cooperative banks dot all of India.
[0] - https://www.investindia.gov.in/one-district-one-product
[1] - https://theprint.in/opinion/politically-correct/rahul-gandhi...
[2] - https://scroll.in/article/858585/amul-is-now-a-congress-mukt...
It's also something that is deeply personal for Narendra Modi and Amit Shah [1] as they started their political careers climbing up the cooperative ladder - they were able to turn Gujarat from being a Congress only state to a BJP only state by co-opting cooperatives in the dairy industry [2]. And in Kancheepuram's case it's an extremely important industry in TN.
Furthemore, if Prada or Chanel buys Indian heritage artisan goods and gives it the luxury veneer, it helps MSMEs and khadi cooperatives demand better terms when wholesaling light manufactured products.
Finally, at a personal level, much of my family is associated with Khadi and Cooperative industries - they are one of the only ways to build medium or even high value industries while giving participants some degree of agency. The profits of khadi goods being sold at high margins ends up in the hands of cooperative members and cooperatives tend to re-invest in capacity building or subsidizing new entrants. This is why you see cooperative banks dot all of India.
[0] - https://www.investindia.gov.in/one-district-one-product
[1] - https://theprint.in/opinion/politically-correct/rahul-gandhi...
[2] - https://scroll.in/article/858585/amul-is-now-a-congress-mukt...
Wish they showed more of the Jacquard loom. Indian (and maybe other) students learned it as a predecessor of modern computers, using punch cards to automate patterns.
ICYMI Recently this link was posted on HN
https://www.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stor...
https://www.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stor...
This was a wild and fascinating read. I thought from the title with Thinking Machines that I would be reading about a hardware startup but instead I got labor markets in India, convolutional neural networks, jacquard looms and Crispr all in one article. The additional beautiful illustrations peppered in between were a great break from the chaos of reading too. This makes me wish for a better way to understand the dyes in my clothing.
really impressive work!!! the depth of research and the way the website presents it are both well executed.
i grew up in erode, a major handloom hub in tamilnadu.. so this hits close to home. research like this helps preserve and better understand regional textile ecosystems that often don’t get enough structured documentation.
thanks for sharing.
i grew up in erode, a major handloom hub in tamilnadu.. so this hits close to home. research like this helps preserve and better understand regional textile ecosystems that often don’t get enough structured documentation.
thanks for sharing.
> better understand regional textile ecosystems that often don’t get enough structured documentation
I recommend looking at a district's website or that if the associated ministry.
They tend to go in-depth into the history of their ODOP and GI goods, as can be seen with Kancheepuram Saris [0][1].
Visiting Khadi and Cooperative showrooms and export promotion events is also a treat - whenever I'm in Delhi I'd always make some time to visit the state and khadi bhavans in Luyten's Delhi to grab gifts and look at heritage goods.
[0] - https://www.indiahandloombrand.gov.in/pages/downloadFile/kan...
[1] - https://hepcindia.com/gihandloom_products/index.html
I recommend looking at a district's website or that if the associated ministry.
They tend to go in-depth into the history of their ODOP and GI goods, as can be seen with Kancheepuram Saris [0][1].
Visiting Khadi and Cooperative showrooms and export promotion events is also a treat - whenever I'm in Delhi I'd always make some time to visit the state and khadi bhavans in Luyten's Delhi to grab gifts and look at heritage goods.
[0] - https://www.indiahandloombrand.gov.in/pages/downloadFile/kan...
[1] - https://hepcindia.com/gihandloom_products/index.html
Looking past the writing style, which I intensely dislike, I am very disappointed in how the article identifies a real problem (Hari is not paid enough) and gives inane solutions (saree NFTs).
Why is Hari not paid enough?
1. "The visual language of the loom is deteriorating into digital gibberish"
2. "the chemical dyes are poisoning the very water the weavers drink"
3. "the market is flooded with fakes that have destroyed consumer trust"
You understand why 1 and 3 are problems to be solved when you consider the solutions proposed: AI and Blockchains. If Hari happens to ask an AI and Blockchain company to help him out, the outcome is clear: after they take a cut, his remaining salary reduces from 5000 to 500, and the consultants walk away to next solve manual scavenging using LLMs and room temperature superconductors.
Naturally, the Cyber Lime வெறியன்s in Paris care whether the yalis are the right way up. The goal is to sell the sarees in "Upper East Side in New York or London’s Jermyn Street or haute Paris" while touting them as culturally authentic. Wikipedia dumps of 5 different kinds of vision models reinforces the idea that AI is, of course, the solution. The only question is which kind.
Using CRISPR-Cas9 for better microbial dyes is interesting. Unfortunately the one link provided is about R&D for food dyes in the US, so I am not convinced (without checking it up myself later) that this is feasible in Kanchipuram yet.
"[LVMH's] Aura Blockchain acts as a digital notary for their diamonds, recording the specific mine of origin and cut history." You can already verify that your blood diamond has been mined by an exploited, underpaid worker. The only thing you need to save Kanchipuram sarees is authentic Proof-of-Exploitation so no one can doubt that your precious clothes are hand-woven by Hari who can't afford his groceries.
Indian luxury clothes made "with a solid bar of silver and gold", the process enhanced with AI and Blockchains, to be sold to a Met Gala market as the solution to underpaid weavers in Kanchipuram is... idk. The cherry on top is them admitting to using AI art in an article about underpaid artisans.
"Even while developing this piece, the irony of using AI was not lost on us." I wish I could pull this off with a straight face.
Why is Hari not paid enough?
1. "The visual language of the loom is deteriorating into digital gibberish"
2. "the chemical dyes are poisoning the very water the weavers drink"
3. "the market is flooded with fakes that have destroyed consumer trust"
You understand why 1 and 3 are problems to be solved when you consider the solutions proposed: AI and Blockchains. If Hari happens to ask an AI and Blockchain company to help him out, the outcome is clear: after they take a cut, his remaining salary reduces from 5000 to 500, and the consultants walk away to next solve manual scavenging using LLMs and room temperature superconductors.
Naturally, the Cyber Lime வெறியன்s in Paris care whether the yalis are the right way up. The goal is to sell the sarees in "Upper East Side in New York or London’s Jermyn Street or haute Paris" while touting them as culturally authentic. Wikipedia dumps of 5 different kinds of vision models reinforces the idea that AI is, of course, the solution. The only question is which kind.
Using CRISPR-Cas9 for better microbial dyes is interesting. Unfortunately the one link provided is about R&D for food dyes in the US, so I am not convinced (without checking it up myself later) that this is feasible in Kanchipuram yet.
"[LVMH's] Aura Blockchain acts as a digital notary for their diamonds, recording the specific mine of origin and cut history." You can already verify that your blood diamond has been mined by an exploited, underpaid worker. The only thing you need to save Kanchipuram sarees is authentic Proof-of-Exploitation so no one can doubt that your precious clothes are hand-woven by Hari who can't afford his groceries.
Indian luxury clothes made "with a solid bar of silver and gold", the process enhanced with AI and Blockchains, to be sold to a Met Gala market as the solution to underpaid weavers in Kanchipuram is... idk. The cherry on top is them admitting to using AI art in an article about underpaid artisans.
"Even while developing this piece, the irony of using AI was not lost on us." I wish I could pull this off with a straight face.
To add to your critique... The piece proposes fast fashion as a solution to the woes of essentially a bespoke, made-to-order craft. How can this not lead down the path from the alleged Prada-ification to a (inevitable) Zara-ification of the woven product... motifs clashing with motifs; culture and context loudly absent.
Quoting:
"For a heritage boutique, this offers a data-driven way to align traditional korvai patterns with modern market appetites knowing, for instance, that a specific shade of "Cyber Lime" will be trending in Paris next season and weaving it into a classic gopuram border."
Um. No please.
The buyer of a Kanjeevaram (or Paithani, or Navvari, or Balucheri, or any number of other traditions) is looking for something outside of time. The very inheritance exists because it is beauty, art, craft, taste of person-hood and---ultimately indescribable but deeply felt---quality that transcends the generations. To be worn until worn out, and then converted to another timeless piece with which the next few generations would adorn themselves.
Quoting:
"For a heritage boutique, this offers a data-driven way to align traditional korvai patterns with modern market appetites knowing, for instance, that a specific shade of "Cyber Lime" will be trending in Paris next season and weaving it into a classic gopuram border."
Um. No please.
The buyer of a Kanjeevaram (or Paithani, or Navvari, or Balucheri, or any number of other traditions) is looking for something outside of time. The very inheritance exists because it is beauty, art, craft, taste of person-hood and---ultimately indescribable but deeply felt---quality that transcends the generations. To be worn until worn out, and then converted to another timeless piece with which the next few generations would adorn themselves.
The nice thing about the belief in the irrational is the market works as long as this brand of irrationality is believed in, suppose aspirational buyers find the cheaper but physically equivalent product finally within reach, I can bet they won't give a shit about these imaginary things.
It toon me two tries to actually read this because the first time the scrolling to get to the article irritated me so much I closed the page.
My sister and mother insisted on having Kanchipuram silk sarees.
Every upper middle class woman had to have them, back in the day.
Every upper middle class woman had to have them, back in the day.
what does this have to do with Thinking Machines? Just clickbait?
> It could find patterns, but it could not understand meaning.
Try to explain that to an AI believer. No chance in hell. The religion brooks no doubt.
Try to explain that to an AI believer. No chance in hell. The religion brooks no doubt.
Amazing article, and love the storytelling format. Checked the altermag.com, I wonder why I didn't stumble upon it before. Easily one of the best websites I visited in recent times.
Really? I personally found it super distracting and too flashy. I mean I do like the style and its vibe, but not super great for actually reading stuff. But its also probably my tastes (still think HN is peak design so)
damn that’s one greatly designed website.
On the other hand, my parents did not realise they needed to scroll down to read the article. :)
It's okay, but the scroll bar is broken and is super jarring every time it decides to hijack it. Could be easily improved by fixing the user experience by having the page scroll when the user does.
I hate it when people mispronounce/misspell Yazhi. It's pronounced using the the most unique feature of the language - "zh" instead of "L" just like Tamil itself (it's actually Thamizh). The original wikipedia page:
https://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%B3%E0...
https://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%BE%E0%AE%B3%E0...
I'm coming around to the idea that we _should_ really be using "l" or maybe "r" instead of "zh" for the ழ. At least it's closer in pronunciation and there's a chance someone can work their way to it. Zh is like "we don't have an exact match so we'll repurpose a letter we don't use". It has no phonetic relevance.
Tamil is my mother tongue and I agree 100%. And like insisting that sentences shouldn't end with a preposition, or "you should say GNU/Linux, not Linux", it's no way to make friends and influence people.
Whenever someone says "actually", it's hard not to think of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGvw-E4OtOA
Whenever someone says "actually", it's hard not to think of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGvw-E4OtOA
Sure, referencing a meme in a language relate discourse, should make people take you seriously /s
>About
> I pronounce my name as kroo-PAH-krun. In IPA it’s /kruːˈpɑːkrən/
Rules for thee, but not for me :))))
>About
> I pronounce my name as kroo-PAH-krun. In IPA it’s /kruːˈpɑːkrən/
Rules for thee, but not for me :))))
Yeah I shouldn't have posted The Office meme. My bad. Unfortunately it's too late to edit my original comment.
All good :)
[deleted]
Yes. Very few non-Dravidian languages spoken in India, have that specific sound.
The only exception I can think of is Marathi. The 'el' in 'sakal' is roughly the same.
The only exception I can think of is Marathi. The 'el' in 'sakal' is roughly the same.
Technically it’s a retroflex approximant [1] and is found in many places (often not as a separate character or phoneme).
But I think we’ve hijacked a cultural thread with enough phonetics for now!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_retroflex_approximant
But I think we’ve hijacked a cultural thread with enough phonetics for now!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_retroflex_approximant
[deleted]
This being one such exhibit https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianHistory/comments/1j75nc0/the_...
Brings back my joyous/carefree youth where I would spend summer vacations ambling around the massive temple complex.