SOUND WEAVING – LOOM

Métier à Musique

Montage vidéo Romain Bourgin

The first time I picked up a loom, I had the physical sensation that I was about to play a musical instrument. The creation of a piece of textile, a piece of music.

In music, there is a chronological relationship

1-partition 2- simultaneous gesture/sound.

In the weaving process, there is also a score (context). The textile, which is produced as a trace at the same time as the music is played, is added to the simultaneity of gesture/sound/fabric (image).

It is this interdependence of the simultaneous trio that is the basis of the mechanics of the device. It is the result of research carried out since 2014 in collaboration with sound, music and image professionals. Graphic designers, sound artists, musicians, video artists, writers, architects, designers and researchers have gradually enriched the project with their vision, to give shape to what looks like a textile song

PHASE 1               

MÉTIER A TISSER SONORE – Paysages  textiles (  SOUND WEAVING LOOM-  Fabric landscapes)

In the trio Geste- sound – image made/ questioning the interdependence of image and sound
In the context of the sound loom and the work Paysages sonores that we presented during the “textile night 2.0”, where the threads pass, the sound passes. For this performance, we propose a process where the image of weaver’s scores (contextures) reworked into sound landscapes, is projected on a wall and scrolls in synchronicity with the “pieces” of weaving that are being constructed. By making the spectator question the relationship between image and sound, inviting him to ask himself whether it is the sound that creates the image, or the image that creates the sound, he is propelled into the process of making the textile.
Through a defined sound bias, an illustration of the evolution of weaving work in history is constructed. With songs from the loom and the sound of selected places on the loom, we question and explore the jobs/works  that make music.

Performance piece "Textile landscapes" Festival MAINTENANT - Nuit Textile 2.0 - Salle le Diapason in Rennes - October 2017 - during the first public presentation of the sound weaving loom

PHASE 2

MUSICA TEXTILIS

Collaborative work with  Elodie FIAT  et  Eric THOMAS

In the trio Gesture – sound – created image / chronological starting point: the gesture
In this new phase, we continue the exploration of the sound loom in the form of a residence
The new loom measures l.3M x L.1.75M x 3M.  We are immersed in the mechanics of weaving with an investment that is all the more physical, choreographic, that we amplify, in addition to the sound device, with a “prepared loom” device. We use this device from John Cage’s prepared piano research by giving attention to and amplifying the sounds that exist around the work (the sounds that exist in the silences between the notes). In this phase of research, we explore how the “silences set to sound” come to be part of and structure the work rather than complement it. 

From left to right - Elodie FIAT - Lucile DROUET - Eric THOMAS - picture Sonia LARUE

The archaeology of the image :
The inventor of the punch card loom was Mr. Basile Bouchon who worked in a weaving workshop.
He was the son of a barrel organist, and so he came up with the idea of applying the same process to the loom. Instead of producing music, the punch card loom produces patterns, images.
Where the sound passes, the threads pass.
This binary code of full and empty gave rise to the coding of textiles and the transformation of hand looms into Jacquard looms. This device served as the basis for the development of the first computer screens.
Here, the sound loom questions the place of the image, particularly the screen, in our lives today, a prism that is probably the one through which you are now reading this. The return to the roots of this technology is one of the characteristics of the sound loom. This return to the essence of the image, as a backdrop to the 2d fabric, is what allowed the first phase of the project to be played in public (MAINTENANT festival of arts, music and new technologies).