Knitting a Screensaver (Spectrum)

Multiples in an Edition of 20 plus Artist Knit

2010

The Binary Code of the Screensaver „Spectrum“ fills 21 pages. Each page was knitted separately by my Grandmother and myself according to its pattern. 0 = knit (right stich), 1=pearl (left stich). Needle number 4.5. The 21 final Savers measure 14.35 inches (36.4 cm) by 9.82 inches (24.9 cm), the size of my Laptop Screen. 21 booklets accompany the Savers, each one with a different front page: The fragment of code on the front page corresponds with the number-tag on the Savers. All 21 Savers stacked up form the complete code of the Spectrum Screensaver. Spectrum: Latin: Image, Apparition The Screensaver as the archetype of modern-day beauty. The appeasing spectrum of colours swims across the screen for no other reason than to please. All possible information present in the machine is obscured by a rainbow. Ultimate beauty in an electronic simulation of heaven or the like. The simple elements of yes / no, left / right, 0 / 1 constitute this infinite flow. Me and my Gran decided to translate this punch-hole pattern into a pre-electronic mode of labour, an analogue rather than digital image, a tangible, 3-dimensional piece of household fabric. We, ourselves, transformed from layered, multi-tasking year-2000ers into linear thinkers, only ever allowing, one by one, zeros and ones, 0 / 1, to enter our eyes, our mind and finally our hands. Just like my Mac Book gives his processing power towards beauty and disguise, we operated as human machines producing nothing but our own screensavers, forbidding our minds to process anything but this beautiful yet entierly useless image.