Net - Lab - provi

On a wide enough screen, every page here has a fishnet in its margins, and it is woven rather than printed: long threads in two directions, each passing over and under the other at every knot, every knot held to its place by a spring and every thread a spring too. Here are its parts, moving by the margins' own numbers, and what else a net can be.

Parts

the weave Two families of threads leaning either way, each passing over the other at one knot and under it at the next. Point at a thread to light it along its length.

springs Each knot is held to its place by a spring, and the thread between two knots is a spring too, so a pull spreads along the weave. Drag a knot.

a hand A hand passing over catches the threads by friction: they move with it until the fabric pulls back too hard, then slip (shown hollow) and spring back.

a tear Press and hold: a finger pushes through, the hole stretching until threads snap and curl back. Let go: the knots spring home, and the ends reach for each other and knit, rough for a moment.

the back Behind the front, a looser net. The page moving past rubs it, hardest near the text (on the left here): it moves with the page until pulled too far, slips, and creeps home. Scroll, or drag up and down.

the rim Toward the text each thread ends at its own point in the net's fade, which breathes in and out, a tide rolling along it. The ends stream while the page moves.

Forms

Aa moiré

Two nets, one laid over the other. The pointer turns the top one and slides it; where their threads nearly line up, bands of light and dark run across both. Left alone, it drifts.

Move the pointer across it.

Bb hammock

A net slung between two posts, sagging under its own weight. Stones dropped into it roll together and stretch it, until a thread pulled past 1.4 times its length snaps. The threads beside a torn one give sooner, so the tear runs until the stones fall through; then the net springs back and knits.

Click to drop a stone, and keep dropping.

Cc ladder

A run, as in a stocking. The net is stretched taut; a press snaps a thread, and the run races up and down from it in a straight line, snapping every thread that crosses the line, until a knot holds. Press on a run and a needle zips it shut from the bottom up.

Press to start a run; press on it to mend it.

Dd web

The fabric spun as a spider's web: spokes from the hub to the edges and rings round it, all pulled taut. A press tears a hole, and whatever no thread ties to the edges any more drops out. The spider walks out along the threads still whole to each torn one, nearest first, and spins it again, then spins what dropped out back thread by thread. Flies cross now and then: one that meets a thread sticks, one that meets a hole flies through, and the spider, with nothing to mend, eats what it caught.

Press to tear it; cut a piece right out.

Ee trawl

A shoal swimming about, and a net hung from a bar. Dragged through the shoal, the net bellies out behind its bar; the fish it meets are carried along in it, and slip out round its edges.

Drag the net through the fish.

Ff loom

The weave's own settings, and a loom that weaves it again, row by row, whenever they change: how far the threads lean either side of the vertical (30° in the margins), how far apart they run (16 px there), how much of a thread is hidden where it passes under another, and whether a third family runs straight across, each family passing over the next and under the one after; at the margins' lean that is a basket's kagome weave of triangles and hexagons.

lean spacing under

Gg hoop

A hoop, its net hanging from the rim. Pull back and let go to throw: the ball flies in an arc, bounces off the rim, the board and the floor, and through the hoop the net swishes, widening round the ball and dragged down with it, then springing back. It counts what goes in.

Drag back from anywhere and let go; the dots show where it will go.

What they showed

The weave is only drawn. The springs never ask which thread is on top; cutting a little out of the thread underneath at each knot is all it takes to read as woven. Set under to nothing (Ff) and the same net lies flat.

Hung by its edges, a net folds rather than holds: its diamonds close up like a garden trellis, and the hammock (Bb), the trawl (Ee) and the hoop (Gg) kept their shape only once each diamond was braced across both its diagonals by springs that are never drawn. The margins' net needs no braces, since every knot there is held to its own place.