Cat Mazza
microRevolt, 2009
Video
Courtesy of the artist

As in much of Cat Mazza’s work, microRevolt combines handmade forms of expression with digital media—the stich and its aestitic juxtaposed with video animation—in an effort to forward an activist political agenda. This particular piece documents the Nike Blanket Petition, a web-based project Mazza initiated. Knitters and crochet hobbyists from forty different countries contributed 4x4 inch squares to the large blanket petition to encourage fair labor practices for Nike garment workers in sweatshops around the world. In the process, Mazza advances a new kind of craft/digital materiality that is at once tangible and intangible, real and symbolic, political and poetic. 

Knitoscope Testimonies, 2009
Video
Courtesy of the artist

The term “Knitoscope” refers to a digital animation program Cat Mazza created to translate digital video data into computer-generated images that mimic textile patterns. In Knitoscope Testimonials, activists from San Francisco, Haiti, and the Netherlands testify to the politics of labor. Mazza brings the handmade and the technological together to give a new voice to a mode of feminist activism that inspired the beginning of labor unions in the American textile industry a century ago.

Cat Mazza
Knitoscope Sampler
Video
Courtesy of the artist

Knitoscope Sampler illustrates another adaptive use of Cat Mazza’s custom software, Knitoscope Here, the artist creates animations of the Fair Isle knit patterns that originated in Scotland centuries ago. She pairs the “knitted” images with video of the Shetland Island landscape on Scotland’s northern coast as a way of providing thought-provoking contextualization and contrast.