Hyperbolic crochet coral reef

- About the Crochet Coral Reef
- Crochet Reef and Global Warming
- Crochet Reef and Hyperbolic Space
- Crochet Reef and Evolution
- The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
- The Rubbish Vortex
- Crocheting Plastic
- The Bleached Reef
- The Chicago Cambrian Reef
- Sister City Reefs
- Contributors

- Crochet Reef Workshops and Lectures

 

Crochet Reef Exhbitions

- Exhibition Schedule
- Crochet Reef Showing in London
- New York Exhibitions - Now Showing
- New York Broadway Windows Photos [IFF-G21]
- New York Winter Garden Photos [IFF-G21]
- Chicago Cultural Center Exhibition
- Chicago Exhibition Main Gallery [IFF-G18]
- Chicago Exhibition Toxic Reef Gallery [IFF-G19]
- Chicago Exhibition Chicago Reef Gallery [IFF-G20]
- The Andy Warhol Museum Exhibition [IFF-G11]
- Track 16 Exhibition [IFF-G12]

 

HYPerbolic Crochet basics

- Here's How to do Hyperbolic Crochet [IFF G-1]
- Crochet Reef Forms- Taxonomy 1 [IFF-G9]
- Crochet Reef Forms- Taxonomy 2 [IFF-G10]
- IFF Exhibit on Hyperbolic Space
- The People's Hyperbolic Gallery [IFF-G4]



Crochet reef contributors

- Ernst Haeckel, Patron Saint
- Daina Taimina, Inventor of Hyperbolic Crochet
- Helle Jorgensen
- Inga Hamilton
- Helen Bernasconi
- Ildiko Szabo
- Rebecca Peapples
- Dr. Axt's Reefer Madness
- Marianne Midelburg
- Eleanor Kent

- Other Crochet Reefs

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THE CROCHET REEF AND EVOLUTION
Haeckel Form #2
To us these wondrous forms call to mind the elegance and wonder of Ernst Haeckel's miraculous nineteenth century drawings of marine organisms.

Phylum discovered by Sarah Simons.  
In constructing our reef, we at the IFF have taken the techniques initiated by Dr Taimina and elaborated upon them. Over the past two years, through increasingly freeform experimentation, we have discovered that tiny changes in the underlying crochet algorithms will result in major changes to the resulting forms. By exploiting this insight we have gradually evolved a wide taxonomy of hyperbolic crochet “species.” To our surprise, the range of possible forms seems to be endless, yet they all result from extremely simple instruction sets. Just as the teeming variety of living species on earth result from different versions of the DNA-based genetic code, so too a huge range of crochet hyperbolic species have been brought into being through minor modifications to the underlying code. As time progresses the models have “evolved” from the simple purity of Dr Taimina’s mathematically precise algorithms to more complex aberrations that invoke ever more naturalistic forms.
RUBBLE
More soy yarn rubble in rust and purple hues. Variegated wools are wonderful for imparting an organic feel to the finished forms.

Anyone who takes up crocheting these structures can begin to develop their own evolutionary pathways and one of the more exciting aspects of the project has been the astonishing variety of forms that have been developed by our collaborators. During the past 2 years the Institute has conducted hyperbolic crochet workshops in Los Angeles, New York and Kansas City, and each time participants have developed hitherto unexpected forms. All of these species are being incorporated into the overall reef, which is quintessentially a collective project. Our ideal is to incorporate participants all over the world – current collaborators are located in the USA, Canada and Australia. During workshops, discussions arise naturally around the theme of evolution and the parallels between these yarn-forms and natural living things. The crochet reef thus serves to engage audiences on the subject of evolution and to demonstrate playfully and materially how evolution works.

More information on the Crochet Reef Taxonomy is available here.
ANEMONE TREE:
After inventing the anemone form in singular, Christine insisted on branching out. Variegated wool in the base and hairy yarn in the head are they keys to this masterful simulation.
© 2005 The Institute for Figuring