Rossella Biscotti’s 10×10 interrelates three histories – the use of punch cards to program both early data processing machines and automated looms (jacquard) respectively, how demographic records have been modeled through census taking, and the legacy of the Haus Esters (1927 – 1930), a single family villa built by a textile baron – so as to question how statistics and quantitative analysis not only represent a given reality, but how such illustrations may also hide cognitive basis hidden in contemporary profiling methods and other displays.
For Haus Esters, Biscotti has developed a site-specific installation that takes a deeper look not only at the history of the textile industry, but also at the villas that Mies van der Rohe designed for the Krefeld silk manufacturers Josef Esters and Hermann Lange. The boom in the textile industry in the nineteenth century came with the introduction of the Jacquard loom. These looms were the first to use punch cards, which allowed patterns to be woven to almost any degree of complexity. With the introduction of the binary system based on O and 1, the punch code presented an early mechanical storage system that formed the underlying architecture for all data processing to come, and thus paved the way for the modern computer. The punch card system was then further developed by the US American engineer Herman Hollerith in the late nineteenth century for the purposes of recording census data. Biscotti's new production for Kunstmuseen Krefeld picks up on the history of textile manufacture and its far-reaching technological and social context. She has had specially designed fabrics woven with patterns derived from the use and transformation of statistical data. Although it has a tactile dimension, the work's emphasis lies in the conceptual aspect of the fabric. The technique of weaving serves as leitmotif for Biscotti's exhibition - not only as a concrete means of production, but also on the content level, where it brings together various narratives, timelines and structural levels.