In this exhibition: Soft Sensing at the Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre, we explore knitting as a data recording medium. Here audiences will both create and unravel knit stitches through active participation and sensors in the environment. Our exhibition will have three methods of participation: (1) human unraveling by manually pulling on the knitted panels to unravel them by hand, (2) walking in front of our unraveling machines that sense human movement, and (3) walking into areas of the building with sensors that measure movement and will cause rows of stitches to be made on mini knitting machines.

 

The Life of a Party is a series of knitting machines that respond to the physical activity in the gallery space, creating several long-knitted party streamers. As individuals walk by the sensor it will knit a row on the streamer, tangibilizing the movement of individuals through the space. With the colour of the yarn changing each week, we will be able to see the ebbs and flows of movement through the building.  In contrast to most recording methods, our record of this exhibition will be an imperfect, tangible, soft, colourful, knitted party streamer. 

 

The goal of our Unraveling series is to use making and unmaking to reflect on collective feelings around a period of time, to break them down and take them apart in order to better understand them. As individuals approach the installation, their presence will be sensed through ultrasonic sensors that then spin a motor to wind up the knitted panels until they fully disappear. This artwork series makes use of the physical affordances of machine knitting. Knitting is a process that uses a single yarn that is manipulated into looping knots to create a textile. Due to this fabrication method, machine knitted panels can also be unraveled by pulling the end of a piece and turned back into a spool of yarn. Machine knitting specifically is influenced by the history of computing. With her hacked knitting machine Greta makes image graphics in binary colours, with two stitches: a knit and a purl stitch that can be translated into binary 1s and 0s, are then automatically stitched as a pattern on her machine. By unraveling these graphical knitted panels, new layers are revealed underneath to create a slow textile video. 

This project has been produced with the support of Artengine.