An innovative new jewellery line, incorporating the wearer’s Twitter feed and to be shown in London’s prestigious Whitechapel Gallery this week, is the first product to come out of Eigg Box on the Isle of Eigg.

The Data Necklace is a wearable visualisation of a person’s Twitter feed over time. It has been designed by Stef Lewandowski, who is currently the Eigg Box Geek-in-Residence. Each Data Necklace is completely personalised to the Tweeter, holding memories and tiny stories that only they or their loved ones would understand.

The Data Necklace

The Data Necklace began after a chance encounter between Stef Lewandowski and Eigg cobweb lace knitter Jenny Robertson. Lewandowski has worked in web and software design since the mid 1990s and Jenny works from Eigg producing very fine cobweb lace veils and shawls using local wool or silk. On his first visit as Geek-in-Residence to Eigg in July he was inspired by what the islanders had achieved and wanted to make something physical rather than digital. Jenny Robertson gave him a bag of wool to take away, make into felt, and create something decorative that combined his digital skills and maker ambition.

After testing out the Eigg wool and finding it wasn’t dense enough to be cut on a laser-cutter, Lewandowski made two Data Necklace prototypes at a “hack day” run by Digital Sizzle in London; one in industrially processed felt, the other in acrylic. Working with digital data from his wife’s twitter feed and with the help of two laser cutting companies, Data Necklace moved from digital concept to wearable reality.

While the acrylic Data Necklace is being made available commercially immediately, the felt prototype, and others made from natural materials from Eigg, is still being developed.

The acrylic and felt Data Necklaces will be shown at the Whitechapel Gallery in London’s Shoreditch as part of Digital Sizzle’s ‘Art Meets Tech’ Hackathon on Wednesday 26th September.

Lucy Conway, founding Director of Eigg Box said “The Data Necklace demonstrates exactly what we hope Eigg Box might achieve; a coming together of local and visiting ideas and skills, resulting in a physical product that can be developed and sold. We hope to develop the Data Necklace idea using other materials from Eigg. The fact that the Data Necklace idea was conceived on Eigg, honed with expertise and input from experts from outside, but brought back and launched from Eigg and the Whitechapel Gallery in London is an amazing achievement.”

Stef Lewandowski said “The Isle of Eigg and my Eigg Box residency has been very exciting and hugely productive so far. As someone based in London, I thought I was going to somewhere very remote, cut off and unconnected. Instead I find a place where it’s easy to make and do work; with a fast broadband connection, help and inspiration from the islanders, and space and time to produce amazing work very quickly.”

For more information visit www.datanecklace.com  www.eiggbox.com  

Source: L Conway