This project explores the connection between binary code and patterns. During a conversation with a friend the topic of binary code came up. At this point, I was quite unaware of how 0’s and 1’s related to code. In my research, I came to understand the basis of binary code and the system of assigning 8 digits of 0’s and 1’s to a letter or form in the alphabet. These 8 digit combinations formed the basis of a pattern that I wanted to expand on. 

Growing up my family and I would go to the beach every summer and seashell collecting was one of our favorite hobbies. Recently, at a used-book sale I came to own a book called Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. This book is a memoir of her time by the ocean and how it related to her life. This “data” became the input I wanted to use in my binary code pattern translations. Drawing and inserting seashells into the 0’s & 1’s of the book title and chapter titles became the basis of a pattern swatch. This process explores the translation of digital processes of code to analog inputs of drawings and data and then back to technology in order to produce tiled patterns. It also explores the amount of control one can and can’t have in designing patterns. While the input drawings of shells was a choice, the rhythm of the pattern was not. The final outcome of the project is printed on fabric. It is an ode to Joseph Jacquard’s loom machine and its influence on the creation of binary code and technology. 

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