By rethinking and redefining the functionality of an outdated knitting machine and integrating it into a new system, this installation proposes a different way to approach seemingly obsolete production processes and means of labor, through the production of a knitted textile. The design of a generative textile is derived from data from the Greek national employment agency using selected patterns originally from Greek folk art. The produced textiles thus serve as materializations of archival information and as records of the current economic situation.
Oiko-nomic Threads is a collaborative project by by Marinos Koutsomichalis, Afroditi Psarra and Maria Varela. It has been presented at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST) in Athens, at the Transmediale 2014 Afterglow in Berlin and at the exhibition No Country for Young Men at the Bozar Museum of Contemporary Art in Brussels.
Samples of the knitted textile have also been presented at the Future Innovators Summit exhibition at Ars Electronica 2014 in Linz, Austria and the design exhibition at ISWC 2014 (International Symposium on Wearable Computers) in Seattle, US.
