Wear Your Heart on Your Sleeve: Using Digital Knitting Machines to Craft Wearable Biodata Portraits

Abstract

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.