This artist turns devastating computer viruses into trippy futuristic knitwear

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jeff donaldson malwear glitchaus

Jeff Donaldson

Jeff Donaldson, AKA Glitchaus.

On May 5, 2000, the devastating computer worm ILOVEYOU began spreading around the world.

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Originating in the Philippines, it tricked its victims into opening an email attachment with the filename "LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.txt.vbs." Once infected, they spammed their email contacts in turn - a chain reaction that would infect tens of millions of computers around the world, creating chaos and doing a staggering $15 billion (£12 billion) in damage.

Today, you can buy ILOVEYOU as a scarf.

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Jeff Donaldson - better known by his pseudonym "Glitchaus" - is a textile designer and artist who creates "glitch art." It's a genre of futuristic artwork that draws inspiration from, or is created by, glitches and malfunctions in computer software - working primarily in textiles.

This interest in the aberrant side of computing led Donaldson to begin studying the code of computer viruses, which sparked a realisation. "What I noticed was these viruses are so tiny ... so they can be viral ... they fit perfectly within a knit scarf. Which I thought was just too good not to do."

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That epiphany led to his current series "Malwear." With the help of specialised software, the 40-year-old artist converts the code that underpins some of the most notorious pieces of malware of all time into fabric stitches, which can then be kitted into scarfs and throws.

If you wanted to, you could even reverse-engineer them - recreating the original virus' source code from nothing but the knitwear.