here is a java applet that lets you view your website, as a graphic that has a rather joan miro, or maybe marimekko, look. the images above, from left to right, represent: this knitting blog, the the knitting tarot page, and the NOSHI knitting monograph series site. (and yes, we're a couple weeks behind where we thought we would be in getting the first two NOSHI monographs up for sale, but we are currently doing user testing on the site and expect that everyone on the list WILL receive an "open for business" e mail by the end of this month, just in time for back-to-school!)
the key for the above graphics is on the site where they can be created, but it's fun to look at the images before the key has been committed to memory, or even consulted, to see how different they all are, and why. (the graphic for this page, in fact, wouldn't stop "growing", and ben realized it was because of the little flickr rotating images over to the right.)
i like a thing that's a representation of another thing. it's documentary, and it's often good to look at. like alex dragulescu's "spam plants", which are computer generated "growths" in which the attributes of size, shape, color, et cetera, are determined by the variables - headers, footers, text - in spam e-mails. switch out "plants" for architecture if you're not the nature-loving type.
and so when do we switch in "knitting"? and to document what? i understand that in debbie new's unexpected knitting there is a chapter called "cellular automaton knitting" in which she gives principles for self-generating patterns. something like that is about the only knit-along i'd ever get involved in. i'm not smart enough to get a ball like this rolling. there are people out there who can offer hypothoses on how leopard spots form, which has something to do with cannibals and celibate missionaries and nowt to do with knitting, but it could.
feel free to get in touch if this topic as a whole - not just leopard spots and plants and cannibals, but using predetermined data to chart knitting - interests you, and you'd like to make a team effort of looking into it. what data would you represent in knitting? how many versions of the same data could you make, changing the "key"? or would you keep the key the same and make multiple efforts to track fluctuating, or evolving, data?