The Kite and the String

A kite without a string does not soar higher; it tumbles. The wind takes it in every direction, and because every direction is available, no direction is achieved. The string is the constraint that converts the wind's undifferentiated force into directed flight. Ingold has used this image to challenge the most fundamental assumption of the triumphalist narrative about AI: that the removal of friction is the removal of limitation, and the removal of limitation is the expansion of creative capability. The string is not a limitation. The string is a condition. Remove it, and the kite does not become freer; it becomes ungoverned. The image organizes Ingold's account of the multiple strings that hold creative practice in directed flight: correspondence is a string, enskilment is a string, textility is a string, dwelling is a string. Each of these is a form of constraint that enables creative work rather than