User:Vera/minor/writing or knitting

First Draft

Forward/introduction
(tell us about yourself and your practice)
I’m Suzanne from Fashion design. I choose for Digital craft because I like to work with electronics and fashion and I think with Digital craft I can research that combination the best way. Also, I would like to experiment with electronics without textiles. (welke expirimenten en waarom de beste weg??) (tell us about yourself and your practice)
I’m Vera from graphical design. From graphic design to digital craft. What I told previously in ‘my craft’ that I was afraid for computers. They didn’t do what I want maybe because I didn’t know where to click one. When I learn how to deal with the computer I wasn’t afraid anymore to digital object’s. before this art academy I hadn’t WhatsApp, ore even a mobile phone and no internet at my home. Not because I didn’t want it but I didn’t care about this thing. Always I was working to make collages, lino’s or string beads I really like to have material in my hands and have some control over it. But in this second school year I found the plotter. And the plotter was something where i had some feelings for. It creates this blurry and gliching things in where I was looking for. It’s complete changes my mind of what I could do with it ore my disire to work with it. After this I felt more convendice to work with electronica’s. Also i read a lot, because I like reading a lot and especially Dutch or famish literature. But also Thomas more with utopia. In this project I found a bit a reader in my self back because I found so many interesting books about this topic to human and machines and objects. To many to read them all but I found many interesting new sentises to what I do for know. but the theory of books is not everything to produce some work. The reason I like to work with materials is that you have fast and quick prototypes where you can see that it is working. Also I’m very bad with my plants but I move my plants every week to a other place when I give it some water. I think the plants will grow better and see a other view of the room. I can right a lot about my furniture in my room and what my relation is between them. We talking about this hidden relation ship though my furniture. My relation between the electronic objects is horrible I place it under my bed. I’m afraid this project ends there to even I like him much.


Abstract
Why do we have machines in life that we don’t know how is made of a craft before? Why do we have machines in life that don't look any more like what it supposes to be, how do we humans used it before? Objects and products keep getting more distant to human design and are starting to be more about how it looks and not how it works or made. For example, the knitting machine. The knitting machine is a machine that is not like the human craft is was before. Before the Knitting machine we had the knitting human. We know our craft by that. We forget how big this simple thing is and how big it is on our growing industry.

But what if the knitting machine was a robot and try to find a way in the human craft. A lotic way to think to dream about a machine craft how is something made in human life. The relation through this machine and human is a dreaming and disappointing ideology. To grow a have a place in our home where the machine can show how to fit in a how to be human life.


Central Question
What is the dreaming machine for a human knitting craft?


Relevance of the topic.

The world where we humans live in grows. It is growing in humanity, technology, and the economies, the way that we make things bigger and bigger never less. When we talk about the future it has to grow. Of course, humans grow also so it is a logic way to think that everything around us has to grow. When we work with technology or machines they have a future in them. But it doesn’t mean that the technology will save us. In Design noir of Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby (p. 6) where they explain that technology is the solution for every problem, not that this is the solution but we think it is a solution because we human create some hidden relation to it.

When I was born I didn’t realize that my parents didn’t had a TV or a pie iron. But when we talk about generations of growing industrials there also things that very slow change. Like knitting. Knitting is for generations the same. The fabrics maybe the only thing is that everything is digitalize but it changes the machines or the way to do it self. Why we talk about this granny thing you may didn’t realize that the hole world where knitting clothes. Look some closer to you’re one clothing. Probity 70% of your closet is knitted. But do you know how knitting works? That we had a big immigration thing about the textiles industry in the Netherlands, and that it has a status symbol when we talk about the golden centuries, that knitting industry placed to Asia where there is a lot of children that works in this industry? To give you cheap or expensive knitting clothing. It is al the same machines. Probably you know knitting as a granny thing. Maybe it was. But the wold changes and knitting don’t chance it change only in the form of where it is produces. But the system of the knitting stays the same. You have the granny knitting with 2 needles. and 2 systems of knitting. What we want to do is not make a knitting machine, but show the gap between human en a machine craft. We don’t know how to and we don’t have this consciousness with knitting at al.

The relevance to the topic is also to see the gap between human and machines. With the gap I mean that we give machines a place and a roll in our lives but there is distant between the will of the machine and the user of this machine. The machine have to do what he have to do and if it’s not working it is his fault. Such a wrong thing to think. The machine does exactly what you want but when you tell, make, it differed the machine will behave differently on the human. The human will give it a place in in their minds. I think it is just a feeling and super human.

We look at the knitting part of the machine a very human thing to do. We think machines are smart, able to do everything what we want. But why? We have to make to teach and create this machines. And no, they don’t want to save our lives because there not able to do it. But the we can have us fascinates what if the impossible is possible. What if this dreaming machine is working? It is human to think that everything is working in theory of prototypes. But there is where the theory of everything of starts right? A fascination, a imagination, a speculation of something is a start for everything what you want to create. What I fascinated is about the thing that dishwashers know when they have to do the dishing including to clean up (for me a solution to life) or the vacuum cleaner is so silent and little that I didn’t know he is in the same room. (also a great thing to development) but also I place my LP-player always high, sometimes I’m afraid he is to cold on the ground. And I l place my mirror always on the ground when I go to sleep.

But we where working on the knitting machine. While we working we created some empathy for this DIY machine. It feels if he needed to show and it what trough he had a lot of intension even his pretentions where nothing his look was enough. This look of the DIY design was pretty crappie and not to complex but the human in school pretend what some crazy machine, but what is does? They didn’t know it looks cool. After this hole DIY knitting machine (rest of explanation is on the wiki) we want to create also our one robot hands to knit.

We go farther in the growing future, we will have more machines, objects, things what will make you’re live easier. We have machines how what recreate crafts. Only the thing is how knows about a craft in this days over 100 years? So Suzanne and I speculated over how will be a knitting machine looks like if we make it of the human imagination. This machine shows our ideology of why we don’t create machines how they look and work in our desires, dreams by knowing the of this machine?


Hypothesis
It could be that the robot knitting arm is not able to work, or maybe it is but to slow and dysfunctional. I can tell you it is dysfunctional for sure and also not able to knit but we working on it to pretend it looks it knitting. We hope that the human feels and can recognize it it knitting. We hope also that humans realize that this is not the way to knit, and that they have counsessnes of the systems what is relevant for them but never had some interests in because there is to many distends between generation, technology. ‘To be human is to refuse to accept the give as given’ (p33. of specteculfe everything)

This hypothetic is also it could be. But is is also a critical reflection to our self’s. We had also expectations of this machine. Ofcoure we talk then about our conceptual theory. When we had a knitting machine how is working how we want in our desires. Also we talk about the our relation to it and how we think together different to this machine.

Mine hypothesis is that the machine is a machine like a printer. All my printers end under my bed I think every machine ends on the ground. The tv, wifi, lapms, watercooker. This robot knitting arm is also a human optject and I will place it somehre in the windowsill next to my plants. But sometimes it is moving behind the curtons and the cars will passing by. The machine will grow bigger on the wall and this machine transformed in some monster. This growing thing is also


Research Approach

We starting by the knitting machine because Suzanne and I are both fascinate with knitting. We started with experimenting with the knitting machines in the fabric station. Than we adopted the open knit machine and we started with taking care of the machine and fixing it. We 3d printed a lot of new pieces and also soldered almost every wire. With the start of the software for the knitting machine it was already a bit shit. It was developed by someone that does not know how knitting works. You can see a big difference between the knitting machines in the fabric station and the open knit in the interaction station. Besides that, the quality of the machines the difference is the people how made the machines. The knitting machine in the fabric station is made by people with knowledge of knitting, the machines are easy to use and the fabric that comes out is a nice quality. The open knitting machine is a pretty shitty quality and made by people that have knowledge of electronics and building machines but not of knitting, the machine is not very user friendly and the fabric that comes out is pretty shitty. But we like the idea of adopting a machine and taking care of it like a kid. We worked on the open knit machine for 2 weeks and got it almost to work. Working on a machine every day the whole for 2 weeks makes you almost feel a connection with the machine. Because of people asking us what the machine was, and then don’t understanding it is a knitting machine we decided to have a look in machines and design. When you ask people about knitting they all talk about a grandma knitting a big sweater with knitting needles, the human movement. But people don’t have a clue about knitting machines and how they look like. So, we decided to translate the human knitting machine, how humans it will see. We’re building to robot arms that are holding knitting needles and the robot arms are going to knit.


Key References
The book of
Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects - Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby Speculative everything - Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby

Key images: Knitting excavator

Sun Yuan and Peng Yu - Can’t Help Myself: https://www.guggenheim.org/video/sun-yuan-peng-yu-tales-of-our-time

the makes have one thing in common and that is machine in relation to human. To human fairs, thoughts, critics, ideologically, desire, fascination.

The machine of Sun Yuan and Peng Yu - Can’t Help Myself:

“The machine is incapable of preforming any task that is beyond the human Experian’s. What human’s fears is the unknown, if it is known it can be call the future. “

(how does your work relate to contemporary makers? what a key analogues/works of inspiration?) 


Literature
Hertzian Tales - Anthony Dunne - ISBN: 9780262042321  Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects - Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby - ISBN-10: 3764365668  Critical Design in Context: History, Theory, and Practices - Matt Malpass - ISBN: 9781472575180  Shaping things- Bruce Sterling - ISBN: 9780262693264  Objects of Desire: Design and Society Since 1750 - Adrian Forty - ISBN: 9780500274125  Objects of desire: the modern still life - Margit Rowell The Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman - ISBN: 9781452654126  Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things - Don Norman - ISBN 9780465051366 0465051367 The politics of design : a (not so) global manual for visual communication - Ruben Pater - ISBN 9789063694227  Conceptual Art - Peter Osborne - ISBN 0714839302


Experiments
(what are you going to test out and why)

when we started with knitting we were experimenting with the knitting machine, we knitted text and a photo of Instagram and that worked out pretty good. We did this experiments with the brother Kh-900. To print a poster and a Instagram to fabric. We were working to the idea of a wall carpet. We know how to knit and how to do it so this was not the issue to work with a machine how do this work of us. The software was a bit disappointing to work with a goes a bit slow, and not is was not very ‘lekker’ designed. The issues of this machine is that it’s only possible to work with 2 different colours of threat and it is not easy to change this. After this we where a bit stuck we where looking at the internet and the lybery for good knitting books ore experimentations. But then there what this thing with the name: OpenKnit. When we saw it for the first please it didn’t look at a knitting machine. Openknit We found the open kit a machine this is based on the open source idea. Then we started to experiment with the open knit machine, and trying to make it work so it can knit automatically.

The first part was finding some documentation of this open knit machine and looking what there was missing. After this it was starting to 3d print everything and soldering this stuff again. Finding every wire to the right port and fix the Arduino code to work. Checking of the servos working and of it is moving.

But when we doing this cardiopulmonary resuscitation project with the DIY machine, there was every time someone how ask us the question what is this machine? After this we think every time what would it be if a knitting machine what something diverged start to draw (on the wiki) this out. this same week when we where discuss the knitting machine we had the same imagenation though this machine some robot hands how will be knitting. But how?

We start to look up on the internet for a robot hand, so many! Incredible but but it was just a robot arm. After some modifications we make a prototype. On this to heavy colours, it was looking as a Barbie and action man together. Some child toy not very gender neutrally. But is was working and it reacts on some pulses. Jippie ai jhee. After this we make a application for this knitting needle some reason it was some bird or a pet for your home. Start 3d printing, goes al lot fault and it cost one week 5 days of school to all this pieces for this knit machine. Start to building it up and looking for some schematics to activate the servos.

When we decided to make a human knitting machine and were experimenting with how people see a knitting machine by using the surprise to make people draw a knitting machine. The drawings were really interesting, some people didn’t really know what to think of when you say knitting machine and some people actually draw a very similar machine to what we’re going to make.
We want find a form how a knitting machine will look like, our imagination machine.


Insights from Experimentation
We startend with the knitting machines and from experimenting with them we learned a lot about knitting and how the knitting machine works. That knowledge for the open knit machine. With a better understanding of the knitting machine it was easier for us to understand and fix the open knit machine.

We decide to adopt a DIY knit machine, a very shitty and neglected knit machine and try to give him his life back. So he had some issues with himself a frustration, maybe because he was Neglected. The communication between him and human was very sad and disappointed. But (we) the human had an expiation of this machine, like a child how have to grow up and try to bicycle. Why use humans this DIY anyway? We know it is a bit a utopic idea to make everything yourself and machines or objects open source. It is most of the time in concept and it work halfway and it is also most of the time user-unfriendly and not always well documented. When you know nothing about for example digital machines, programming and 3D printing at all. They documented there work but don’t explain why? so everyone was also asking what is this machine doining? And I didn’t know that a knitting machine was looking like this.
With the open knit we can make everything open source but not what we want. There is a big gab between the machine and the user. Between the programmer and the audients to use the machine. We ask Gera (master knitting at the fabric station) why she don’t use the open kit (the shitty machine) and she say: ‘’the machine is not based on how knitting is working’’ This gab between a user and familiar with knitting and a geek how to know to building a machine whit out knowing of the user. You could see a big different between the two machines by who made them, the knitting machine at the fabric station are made by people who know about knitting and you can knit everything with the machine. The shitty machine works kind of the same but is made by people who know about electronics but not about knitting and the machine can knit but the result is pretty crappy.

What this open knit machine was in the first place. This open knit machine [1] was made by a couple of humans as a DIY project. At the instructables [2] standing an explanation of how to build an open knit machine. The open knit was a success and they made a better version [3] A project that is standing on kick-starter now. Even the knitting machine has some success they didn’t put everything online like the shield on the Arduino and also the software is pretty shitty to. There is no access to create a designer or a designer perspective. Also the open source is lost. When we talked about open source I didn’t know anything about it. For me, I have always some utopic images in my head when I think about a knitting machine. This image in my head is every time some robotic hands with kitting needles in their hands that try to do a human action/moving to create a knitting piece.

Design noir: the secret life of electronica objects describes the The notopia in the first part off the book. “ happy-ever-after” where technology is the solution of every problem. Maybe we felt lonely without al this machines. And we can’t be happy anymore. We didn’t realize how many things and objects we have in live and have some relation with it. The Notopia is for us, so maybe it will bring us farther away from the reality of the craft, like the knitting object. But maybe we find a buddy to knit with when we are lonely or dreaming to have some object in our imagination that is the reality for now.

The object what we create now is between the human and machine. It doesn’t have a conciseness but it has a goal to produce without knowing it. Even we don’t know what this machine is able to lean or feel why the need to move as a human. We think it will felt lonely because it is counter clockwise. It is the object that has to learn by doing what a human thing is to do. Also we had a discussion is this machine right or left-handed. It gives some emotional feeling, of course you can say right-handed. But can you give me an example of a right-handed machine? that’s the point when you knit you have to choose a side. As a human being you know you left or right handed. A machine or object doesn’t even know till you say what, what is.

The object what we want to make is in our optics just a knitting machine that used to look like a normal human that is knitting with knitting needles. We use our global visual culture as humans to form a product that we combine with transparency till we create an object related to humans. This object is more than the conceptual part of visualising the human handling in a human handling knitting machine. This machine will able to fail. but also very human to fail also we don't know what the human the environment will do. The human have a participating role in this machine and also other wise the machine shows the human how to work with this carft

After working with the open knit we came with a other project based on the open knit machine. Why do we have objects in life that don't look anymore what it suppose to be, how we humans used it before? Objects and products keep getting more design and are starting to be more about how it looks and not how it works. And the products are starting to look more like art objects than user-friendly products. For example the knitting machine, it its a machine what's not like the human craft is was before. What if the knitting machine what a robot and try to find a way in the human craft. or pretend is is a human, like the natural human movement of the body. maybe it is very awkward for a machine to do the human thing because he don't know how to knit or otherwise the human want to help the machine to leant how to knit on a human way. or both of them are very awkward with the idea that a machine try to do a human thing without performing. Maybe the human gets mad on the machine because it go's to slow. or don't learn to fast like a baby. it cost time to reshape, of learn the concept to become something in life. also it can be some weird thing when old machines give a life as knitter machines, a without performing for machines how to old to function. a retirement home for machines or a kindergarten

When we talk about a machine without human feelings, but with a human movement, trying to have the similar moving as humans. than we talking about the machine but when as the machine doing to preform a human movement and the human know how to help this machine. what will be the relation of the human with this machine?

Suzanne and I will exploring in this project a the human handling in a knitting machine, the relation between the imagination of a object and the machine, aesthetic experience of the human and machine the relation between human and the machine or the otherwise. Will the human help, to knit? or are the awkward with the fact the machine don't want to lat help? and how will it fit in a human behaviour were this machine not will existing only in imagination. When they looked at the machine they didn't think about a knitting machine and didn't really understand how this weird looking machine could knit. Knitting did not really evolved during the years, we have knitting machines and on kickstarter there is a complet digital knitting machine but knitting is existing for so many years and it evolved very slow. In everybody mind it didn't evolve at all the most people still just think about the knitting needles and knitting with you're hands ( and grandmas) . Also big knitted sweaters is the main thing people think about if you talk about knitting, and most are very surprised when you tell them there t-shirt is knitted as well. The human movement is still stuck in everybody's mind. Knitting will always be a human thing and a human movement for most people. What if we make the human movement of knitting a machine movement. Would it knit? would people recognize it as a actual knitting machine or would it look like an awkward machine?