It’s been a lot longer since my last post than I had anticipated when starting this project; I optimistically thought I would bang out a post every other day, a slight over-estimation of my productivity. That being said, I have planned many future posts, so stay tuned, and as an excuse I have been caught up over the last week or so with applications, reading, another crochet project, and making something special for my pal, Daisy, as it’s her birthday. She is my flatmate back in London and it was so hard to leave her when lockdown started, but because of the total opacity of the situation, it made more sense for me to come to my parent’s house. Anyway, it is her birthday this weekend and we had big plans for a party which, given the current sunshine, would have been perfect. I made her this inkle band that is meant to look like daisies - I warped an extra few pattern threads which meant determining the daisy pattern was more difficult than anticipated, but it looks cute, no?!

I thought I would do a little introduction to Ariadne, to explain a bit about what I want to take from her, her practice, and her story as it relates to my own. Most prominently, she is symbolised by thread or string, and is closely related to Arachne, such that some scholars associate Ariadne with weaving and spinning (I will write more about this soon). 

However, most are probably familiar with her from the Greek or Cretan myths in which Ariadne helps Theseus defeat the Minotaur and escape the labyrinth. The Greek myth tells of Ariadne, who was Cretan and the half-sister of the Minotour and therefore daughter of King Minos, falling in love with Theseus, the son of King Aegeus of Athens, and giving him a sword to kill the Minotaur and a ball of thread with which to trace his way back out of the maze. She therefore betrays her family, and after Theseus completes his mission, Ariadne elopes with him back to Athens only to be deserted on Naxos until she found love with Dionysus, who she later had children with. 

Many read this myth with Ariadne having the lower hand, given that she helps Theseus and he then betrays her. In some accounts, Ariadne even hangs herself with the thread she gave to Theseus; an indication that a woman’s efforts will eventually be her demise. However, the portrayal of Ariadne as someone so unconvincing, who would give up her family and Crete for the first man (hashtag not all men) who came along, and then who was so easily abandoned, can be reinterpreted to some extent. Firstly, in some accounts Ariadne fell in love with Dionysus while eloping with Theseus, and that it was, therefore, Dionysus who forced Theseus to leave her (Remember, Dionysus is the God of wine, ritual madness, ecstasy, and fertility - much more appealing, anyway). But regardless of the men, ancient historians have revealed that Ariadne is a pre-Greek word, and more accurately relates to Crete (where she was from anyway), which was a matriarchal society with goddesses but no Gods. Concurrently, the bull was a sacred symbol in Crete, and bull-leaping games were an important part of ritual. Yet in the Greek myth of Ariadne, her mother, Pasiphae, is portrayed as twisted and sexually overcome for a bull who she eventually mated with (and who became the Minotaur’s father). This part of the story only served to subordinate the Cretan society by portraying them as barbarians in favour of the patriarchal Greeks. The Greeks, no doubt, reinterpreted the Cretan symbolism and imagery of playful  rituals with the bulls as sexualised and macabre acts of sadism in order to justify their conquest and dominate the Cretans. 

Anyway, taking a non-linear approach to the myth as intensely metaphorical, we can pick out what is important beyond the minor (misogynistic) details. For example, Ariadne’s story can be interpreted in regards to female creativity.  We can view the creative process (or any learning process) as a maze or labyrinth, with a monster who must be slain at the end. Sociologically, (and for more detail see JJ Cohen’s Monster Theses) monsters always signal boundaries; they embody uncertainty, appear at moments of indecision, they are fear, desire, anxiety, and fantasy made flesh, they tempt curiosity with unknown fates, etc. etc. The Minotaur as monster represents all of these things, and the myth tells that perseverance can overcome doubt. I won’t dwell on this because I cringe at this level of pop-psych, but as someone who learns so much from process, and who advocates for transparency in process, I do find this to be a valuable metaphor. 

Returning to the Monster Theses (linked above) in particular,  2 out of the 7 ‘theses’ I find to be most relatable to Ariadne’s myth. The second theses, “The Monster Always Escapes”, explains that while the damage is prevalent, the monster itself vanishes only to reappear somewhere else, and the seventh thesis, “The Monster Stands at the Threshold…of Becoming”, emphasises that we, as humans, are the creators of our own monsters, they are cultural inscriptions and reflect those in power. With these theses, we can see the Minotaur as misogyny (toxic masculinity, ’its a man’s world, baby’), for although we (womxn) may persevere, I personally find that I lack self confidence, and constantly second guess myself, my achievements, and my goals. This is no doubt a symptom of the society we live in. As I have written in the ‘About Me’ section of my website, I struggle to find outlets for my work and writing, and dismiss most things that I do. Anyway, process = progress and IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CLIMB. 

Less metaphorically, perhaps, and in relation to TECHNOFEMINISM ‘Ariadne’s Thread’ is a method of problem solving through an exhaustive application of logic to any and all available options. It is used in a lot of AI, especially in regards to online gaming, although it is too laborious/time consuming for anything more complex. It also requires the establishment of a record of every possible outcome in order to allow backtracking to change moves and decisions. Sorry to be a one trick pony, but I cannot stress how much I luv the process, and I look forward to backtracking on this blog in the future to see how my decision making, creative outputs, research interests come into being! On a different note, I’ve been thinking a lot about machine ethics and AI decision making lately (more on this later), and in particular the difference between explicit and implicit moral AI agents. It’s scary, interesting and over-whelming, and honestly I wish it was as simple as applying Ariadne’s Thread. Ariadne is also the name of the cyborg in The Golden Age by John C. Wright and, of course, Ellen Page’s character in Inception. Pretty cool huh! 

Anyway, as I mentioned, I’m struggling on the productivity front, so bare with me while my process is limited and progress is slow. 

Stay tuned for more on mythology, weaving, technofeminism, and women!

And for more info on JJ Cohen’s Monster Theses, feel free to check out my essay on Ginger Snaps, menstruation and werewolves as they relate to his work here (although it is from 2016).

Cya.