Artists
Lorelei Koss
Professor of Mathematics
Dickinson College
Carlisle Pennsylvania USA
Statement
My mother taught me to knit and crochet, and my daughter taught me to make friendship bracelets. I enjoy using mathematical ideas in crafts that have traditionally been associated with women, creating work that bridges these domains. My recent work has focused on using mathematics to illustrate design in everyday objects.
Artworks
Wrong Number
18.0 x 18.0 x 1.0 cm
Commercial phone cases, acrylic rhinestones
2026
Many systems detect errors without correcting them, as when a mistyped credit card number is rejected but the intended number cannot be reconstructed. This project focuses on systems that both detect and correct errors, making that process visible. Two hand-decorated phone cases encode the messages “Wrong number” and “whos this” in ASCII using the Hamming (7,4) code. Color reveals the code’s structure: two colors represent 0s and 1s in the four data bits, two represent 0s and 1s in the three parity bits, and a fifth highlights a correctable single-bit error. By placing the structure of error correction on the exterior of the device it supports, the work reveals a hidden mechanism that enables reliable digital communication.