The SuperSurfaceSpace exhibition space on Lev Tolstoy Street again surprises guests with the wonders of robotics. After summer workshops and master classes dedicated to 3D printers, the curators of the art gallery, continuing the theme, prepared a new and rather unexpected program. For the next three weeks, the gallery turned into a creative laboratory, an experimental textile workshop. Technological machines and patterns printed by them appeared on the tables - heaps of knitted things, covers, handbags, sweaters, scarves and hats. Each with a designer print or lettering. If earlier we were surprised to talk about printed houses made of concrete, now - about clothes, accessories and interior items made of wool and acrylic.
The unusual workshop began its work on Monday evening with a lecture from representatives of the Knitic group. In the dim light of a projector, Varvara Guliaeva and Mar Canet from Barcelona gave an interested audience a presentation on the history of textiles. In the middle of the last century, knitting machines were very popular, but today this device is only perplexing for most consumers. Now we are talking about the second birth of such machines. Hackers and computer geniuses joined their reanimation, turning the old mechanism into a robotic device - in fact, the same 3D printer, only printing textiles. For this, the machines, assembled in the last century, were "hacked", modernized and connected to a computer with the ability to preset, program the desired colors, patterns and knitting density. Equipped with a robot, the machine learned to make itself, or more correctly, to print new, unlike anything else.
Varvara and Mar have been working together since 2009. One of their goals is to integrate the textile industry into the culture of modern makers. It is not the creation of an autonomous knitting machine that is important, but a control system, the “brain” of the knitting machine, which makes it possible to change and correct the pattern in real time by controlling the movement of the needles. Thanks to their invention, the Knitic team has already created many art and design projects. For example, knitted advertising banners, a decorative model of a minibus, or a literary and artistic project called SPAMpoetry that combines poetry and textile design.
It would seem that there are so many expensive and technological means - lasers, 3d-printers, CNC machines - and all for the sake of creating textiles? But the authors admit that they want to use the invention in mass production. Already today, there is a lot of interest that can take this design industry to a fundamentally new level, preserving the memory of almost lost knitting machines.
Today, several machines are used in the workshop, and young inventors willingly share the secret of their creation. So, at different times, seminars and master classes on the collection of knitting machines were held in Madrid, Milan and other European cities. In the coming days, the entire assembly process of the Circular Knitic printer, which became the winner of the 3D Printing Contest 2015 this spring, can be seen with your own eyes in a Moscow gallery. Workshops dedicated to this will be held on October 1 and 2. And for those who cannot personally be present at the birth of a new car, the authors report that all information and detailed instructions are available on the network. According to them, anyone who has access to laser cutting or 3D printing will be able to assemble such a machine according to the drawings presented in order to independently print a new hat or laptop case. The idea of such a machine originated back in 2012. Interestingly, the machine itself, which can be called a kind of 3D printer, consists of parts that are printed on a printer or cut with a laser.
Visitors to the unusual exhibition will be able to study in detail the samples brought from Spain, including from the series of the above-mentioned Spam Poetry and Neuro Knit, created using the same old "hacked" knitting machine. The entire gallery is literally filled with exhibits linked on printers, looking at which it is hard to believe that they were created by a robot. The gallery also offers exciting workshops and educational programs. For example, an old Brother KH940 typewriter will be remade in front of the public and connected to a personal computer, turning it into a home textile printer.
An exhibition of amazing Knitic projects will be open every day from one to nine in the evening. The event and educational programs will last until October 14 inclusive.
