About
The media I work in is traditional crafts, new/old technologies, quiet moments past and present. The work is rooted in the common ground of open source/sharing folk communities such as knitting circles, craft groups, do-it-yourself electronics kits, and "how-to" homepages. I use grid based needle arts as a vehicle for the realization of intangible digital ephemera; icons, symbols and code become palpable objects.
I have come to find traditional folk crafts as the natural counterpart to digital structure due to their ideal relationship of conceptual parrellels and aesthetic contrasts. Digital images of course are grid based fields of pixels. Craft forms - knitting, crochet, embroidery, needlepoint, quilting - are all grid based, and needle arts specifically are strict grid based fields of interlocking stiches. This offers all off the possibilities of accuracy, duplication, and sharing, that exists in computer culture. Chances are your grandmother was "file sharing" knitting patterns long before the internet. Conflicts of authorship and proprietary rights exist in both of these cultures. One can duplicate a store bought knitting pattern, customize and alter it and share the new version with others - similar to pirating and sharing software and music.