XYZ Knitting or Searching for Mary

But, you may say, what is so special about knitting? I will try to explain. At least since the birth of the assembly line in the industrial revolution, designers have been taught a way of design thinking that objects are made out of parts. Parts with a distinct function, assembled into an object. However, knitting is designing from a different perspective. The structure of a knit makes it possible to create material and form at one and the same time. No material has to go to waste.

A knit can be three-dimensional depending on material or structure. Or both. There are materials that can hold three-dimensional form better than others. And there are structures that make a knit more three-dimensional. However, as scale increases, a knit will eventually collapse. Consequently, an external element is needed, for example a body or filling, to get and maintain the three-dimensionality of the knit. How can the knitted structure be challenged to be three-dimensional of its own? A knit can be carried out by hand with a pair of knitting needles or with a knitting machine. The needles and machines are tools to give form to the knit structure, primarily constructed to increase the speed of the craft. When we look for innovation within knitting it is usually through material, form, pattern, colour, or the artistic context. The tools, on the other hand, have looked more or less the same for centuries. Zooming in on machine invention, certain engineering methods are common practice. I wonder, what does machine invention look like as artistic practice? A machine can imitate the work of human hands and acts as an extension to them. What does it mean to share automation, to make together, with a machine?

The aim with XYZ Knitting or Searching for Mary is explore these questions, with the motivation to stretch our perception of knitting, to provide an artistic perspective on invention as well as visualise human+machine collaboration and interaction. This research is grounded in practice-based experiments with prototyping and experimentation in an interplay human and machines, with analogue and digital tools. The practical experiments are supported by theoretical studies with literature reviews on knitting, artistic research and human+machine collaboration. The essay ”A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf (1929) and the novel ”Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley (1818) are used as artistic tools for reflection as well as to ground and bridge the thesis to discourses.

XYZ Knitting or Searching for Mary expands our knowledge and understanding of knitted structure, form and performance and call attention to designing form and material as one. It is a contribution to tools within textile craft, and displays artistic practice in the field of machine invention.

By Louise Christiansson, 2020.

Awards
This thesis was awarded Göteborgs Slöjdförening’s degree award in the MFA Design category, June 2020.