JULIA

A program converts text into binary code, then into a punch card matrix that can be used on a knitting machine. The size of the piece depends directly on the length of the text: the longer it is, the more the wool stretches.

This project makes the measurement of digital data visible to the naked eye. A text is a sequence of characters that a computer encodes in bytes: sequences of eight 0s and 1s. When knitted, this code becomes a long two-color scarf: one thread for the 0s, another for the 1s. The scale is surprising: 50 words already produce 1.50 meters of knitting. Translating an entire dictionary would therefore lead to a 133 kilometers scarf.

Yet, on a computer hard drive, the memory occupied by a dictionary would be almost negligible.