Project
The Knitted Mind
Year: 2022
Category: Industrial & Infrastructure
Skills: Rhino, Grasshopper, Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, V-Ray
Today, 26 June 2050, due to uncontrolled global warming, the earth's temperature has risen above 2 degrees Celsius and increasing areas of land are facing severe drought. Most of the remaining arable land has been set aside for food, and strict regulations are in place to protect the planet's dwindling water resources from further pollution. Humans have unconsciously caused an increase in the number of microplastics in the oceans. Oil, once seemingly limitless, has run out and unfortunately reached its last drop, leaving behind huge unused structures. "The Knitted Mind" aims to re-functionalise abandoned oil platforms and become a research base and an answer to the problems that people will face in the coming years. In 2020, the COVID-19 virus, which shook the world, mutated and came back in the coming years in a metamorphosed and inedible form. Humanity will have to cope with bigger pandemics...
Garbage Patch & Existing Oil Platform Along Seal Beach
Garbage Patch in the Oceans (km2) Every time low-quality products are washed, waste water and microplastics reach the oceans. Half a million tonnes of microplastics enter the seas and oceans every year through machinery, and this amount of plastic waste each year causes major environmental impacts. As long as low-quality products are produced, the concentration of microplastics in the North Pacific Garbage Patch will unfortunately continue to increase.
Timeline of "The Knitted Mind"
Distribution of ocean microplastic sources worldwide, 2018. "During the use of plastic products and when the accumulation of waste is not acted consciously, it is possible to encounter microplastic hazards. Microplastics are generally expressed as particles between 1 nm and 5 mm in size. Micro and nano-sized fibres released as a result of washing textile products constitute a significant portion of the total microplastics." BALPETEK, F. G., DEMİR, A., & ÖZDOĞAN, E. (2022). THE EFFECT OF WASHING PROCESSES OF SYNTHETIC BASED TEXTILE PRODUCTS ON MICROPLASTIC POLLUTION. Journal of Engineering Sciences and Design, 10(3), 1097-1106.
Main Stream Along The Structure
"The Knitted Mind" aims to produce clothes or equipment that will completely cover the bodies of people called 'exosuit' in these difficult conditions. It does this by collecting microplastics from the oceans, recycling them and combining them with various organisms. This process is supported by machines and robotic arms as well as manpower.
Schematic & Concept Creation
"The Knitted Mind" aims to draw attention to the fact that machines are always used as an extension of the production technique, to replace, improve, transform, elaborate through accelerating the speed and forces of production. However, with a purely functional and mechanistic approach, it seems too naïve to reduce the machine to this obvious objective dimension; it limits it specifically to a cartesian notion of productive power, situated in the visible spectrum of appearance and reality. In parallel, machines generate multiple associations and infiltrate the raison d'être of our own bodies and minds, which are dependent on our own biotopes or habitats.
The Knitted Mind
The future coexistence of machines with human beings aims to make them de facto a paradigm of the body. This is a requirement for human beings and life that machines and bodies work as a whole in the future.
Merve Hilal Aktas
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