Brain Dump

Refined Speaker Notes

Hi, my name is Reverie, and my thesis is called “Knitworks” and I’m interested in combining technology and fibePr arts.

Right now, my piece connects two analog force sensors using recycled ethernet cables, with a line of NeoPixels as an output. A trail of light forms reacting to a person’s touch at either end.

(slide 3) The idea of combining knitting and tech first sparked at our Berlin session in January, where I began comparing decentralized networks with the knitting community. Besides the obvious visual metaphor of knit pieces creating a literal net of connections between different points, I felt like they both have conceptual parallels as well. They both reject mainstream, capitalist systems as well as create and nurture community spaces.
(slide 4) Continuing my research with networks, I discovered the complexity of mycelium systems that connect trees underground. This network, nicknamed the “wood wide web” mirrors digital networks like our internet as well, allowing trees pathways to communicate with each other, whether it is sharing resources, warnings, or support for each other.
Reading the book Ways of Being by James Bridle pushed me to think about other intelligences that exist in our world. With my thesis work, I want to inspire a question in viewers that Ways of Being asked me: Why do we place human intelligence at the top?
This piece will weave together all of these layers: aesthetics of mycelium networks, interactivity of humans, and recycled communication infrastructure.

(slide 5) I started small, running tests with LEDs and diffusion materials, building toward my current prototype. I learned through creating physical iterations and user testing how I could refine my conceptual clarity of the piece. (slide 6)
(slide 7) Originally, I imagined combining yarn with wires, mixing the aesthetics of fiber arts with technology, but I have since pivoted. I will be weaving together the wires from recycled Ethernet cables to literally and metaphorically represent both analog and digital networks.
(slide 8) I realized through user testing that creating distance between the nodes can help force interaction between multiple people. If the sensors are far enough apart, no one can activate the system alone.

I hope the work inspires questions about human connection, intelligence, and about how different systems around us mirror each other. I want people to be able to experience and feel the network I have created, not just understand it.

I am curious to know, if I didn’t explain the research, would you be able to tell that the piece is about connections?
Would you understand that it is about shared human experience and different types of networks?