Sonotextility & Portraits In Ink
1 - 17 October
Opening Night Thursday 8 October | 6:00 pm | FREE EVENT
Image Credit @soggybreadissad
Sonotextility
Sonotextility refers to a gestalt concept describing the co-emergence of sound and textile practices in human cultural and cognitive development. Rather than treating music, proto-language, and textile production as distinct domains, Sonotextility foregrounds their shared material logics: tension, rhythm, repetition, patterning, and embodied manipulation of flexible media as a unifying sequence of gestures.
Sonotextility is based on a multi-year project investigating the intersection between textiles and sound. The resultant carpet-based works are the culmination of auratic performances which began at New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) 2025, where the performance was awarded first prize for best music. The performance has had subsequent iterations presented at ANAT Spectra, MONO 59, Apparatus Reflect, and most recently a durational carpet making performance at MONO X IAG.
This approach to creative practice draws on tactics of media archaeology to integrate findings from interacting with collection materials from Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris, France. The project focuses on a sequence of automated looms, of which the 1725 Métier à tisser de Basile Bouchon, was the first to incorporate perforated paper strips or punch cards to control the automation of textile production. The notation structure of the punchcards was based on an earlier form of crude musical notation used in the striking of carillon bells. The project explores this intersection further through speculations on music and textile interactions guided by principles of Material Engagement Theory.
Through interacting with pivotal objects along the historical trajectory of computation, the project synthesises historical connection into experimental composition and instrument making practices. Each instrument represents a compositional process and a way of thinking through composite technical objects. Each carpet represents a culmination of an experimental process, across time, space, and locality: speaking to the magnanimity of connection between textiles and sound.
Portraits In Ink
Portraits in Ink documents tattooed bodies and tattoo artists through black and white film photography. Exploring the relationship between tattooed bodies and the artists who create them, the portraits capture skin as both a personal archive and a living canvas. This body of work celebrates tattooing as an enduring form of artistic expression, identity and connection.