The hand —organ of knowledge and creation— is also an ancestral technological device that has taken the form of a calculator, musical score, calendar, sundial, language transmitter, and more. When the hand learns to knot cords, it discovers a coding system. The knot is used as an information structure or as a primitive form of algorithm. Different knot configurations allow for the storage and transmission of data, as was done with Andean khipus.

Macramé Finger is a reflection on the value of manual labor in times of digital automation and a questioning of the future of work and how crafts are transforming in the face of emerging technologies and the contemporary global economy.

The installation consists of five 3D printed sculptures, shaped like fingers knotted in macrame patterns, which, through augmented reality (using mobile phones and wireless headphones), emit sound compositions with spatial and dynamic audio in four or six channels. For AR detection, markers are used on each sculpture to initiate the spatialized sound immersion. Body movement—approaching, moving away, passing through—modulates the sounds radiating from the sculpture, following the viewer like a living echo of the work.

The musical elements derive from algorithms that sonify the data obtained from weaving each macrame pattern using motion-capture gloves. The hand-tracking data was imported into SuperCollider and used as control signals for all sound synthesis or processing algorithms, mostly aligning its timing with the real-time durations of each knot being woven.

Logic Pro was used to integrate all the different sound elements into distinct compositions, corresponding to the spectator’s position relative to each sculpture, combining a sonic background common to all the pieces for each sculpture, and at the same time deriving contrasting sound panoramas from the same hand movements captured while weaving.”

In Macramé Finger, the ancestral act of weaving becomes a contemporary system of coding. Every pressure, twist, and tension on the cord generates data that structures the sounds and each knot becomes a sonic imprint of artisanal labor.

Software used: Rokoko Studio, Blender, SuperCollider, LogicPro, TestFlight.
Hardware: Rokoko Gloves, Smartphones, Wireless headphones

Sound design: Pablo Silva
AR programming: Francisco J. Peregrina
3D rendering and modeling: Luis Bolaños