Devices for digital fabrication are becoming increasingly smaller and more portable, enabling digital fabrication research to move into new environments. In this exploratory research-through-design project, we aimed to physicalize data on-the-go using a portable digital fabrication device, and gathered community annotations and traces of the journey the machine went on with "stitch markers". We describe the development of The Life of a Small Town, a portable knitting machine that was adapted to knit rows of stitches in response to sensor data. The machine travelled throughout a small town and "popped up" at local art events to sense and physicalize social gatherings held by an arts organization over the period of one year. Individuals participating in events could also decorate their own "stitch markers" to annotate and pin to the data. In this paper we discuss the insights from an analysis of the stitch markers and traces of the year-long journey.

Innovations in digital fabrication technologies are increasingly enabling artists and designers to create data physicalizations in real time. In this paper, we discuss how we adapted a circular knitting machine to physicalize visitors at a local art gallery during the pandemic recovery year. To evaluate this year-long installation, we conducted design critiques with 15 individuals including those who worked in the building and lived alongside it for a year, as well as subject matter experts. We then iteratively worked with 11 of those individuals to gain insights for re-deploying the visualization for interpretation. Overall, this paper contributes long-term reflections and recommendations for using digital fabrication for real-time data physicalizations.

Biofeedback sensors that measure body signals, such as heart rate, are often used for bodily awareness and behavioural change. In contrast, for this project, we wanted to use body sensor data as an artistic resource to craft wearable textile portraits as mementos of a moment in time. During the pandemic, we conducted a user study to design knitted biodata portraits. We met up individually with 20 participants to measure their heart rate, and translated that data into digitally-designed aesthetic patterns for machine knitting. Using a hacked knitting machine, we fabricated these patterns to create 20 personalized wearable shrugs to enable individuals to “wear their heart on their sleeve”. Two years later, when it was safe to do so, we conducted 2 studio workshops with participants, followed by 10 individual interviews. Our qualitative study insights reveal how individuals felt about seeing their own biodata, and the biodata of others, as aesthetic machine-knitted wearables with perceived precious value and attachment.

During the pandemic many individuals turned to handcrafts such as knitting to cope with the uncertainty and anxiety we were collectively feeling. In this artwork we wanted to bring knitting out of isolation and to use it as a method of community participation to document the “recovery” year at a local art gallery. In July 2021 we launched The Life of a Building at the Ottawa Art Gallery in Ottawa, Canada, which knits visitor data at the physical gallery as well as online interactions on the gallery website. Each month the colour of the yarn changes, creating a tangible, soft record of this unpredictable year. During TEI, the audience will be able to visit the gallery website, click a button to create their own row of stitches on the machine, and watch the knitting machine knit them into the installation through the livestream.