From 11th March, the Open Data Institute in London will be showing a knitted artwork developed from the Punchcard Economy project as part of their new exhibition. DATA AS CULTURE has been put together by curator Shiri Shalmy, and features works by James Bridle, ThickEar, YoHa and James Brooks.
My contribution – ‘8 Hours Labour‘ – is a large-scale knitted sample data-visualisation, created as part of the development of the Punchcard Economy project, and re-worked especially for the ODI show. The piece re-frames a section from the larger Punchcard Economy banner, based on the Robert Owen’s 8 Hour Day Movement slogan:
‘8 Hours Labour, 8 Hours Recreation, 8 Hours Rest’
The work incorporates contemporary data about working hours within the ‘digital’ economy – collected via the project website – to map the shift from Owen’s ideal. Each misplaced stitch represents an hour of work done outside of the 8 hour ‘contract’.
The work has been created using a Brother KH950i electronic domestic knitting machine (produced 1988), and uses the DaviWorks IMG2Track software (http://daviworks.com/knitting) and PPD cable hack to transfer digital image files from the mac to the knitting machine.
