sampler - cultureclash

In Conversation with Boys Who Sew

2012-01-08T19:42:00.013Z

Happy New Year! Wishing you all a peaceful, collaborative and creative 2012.

It's a while since I posted anything on the sampler blog, as I've been busy with my own residency in Berlin - In Search of Berlin Wool.

However, I'm delighted to say that all being well the sampler-cultureclash collective will be getting together for several events in 2012, including performances in Belfast in March and at the Manchester Craft and Design Centre on Saturday 14 July. In addition we're at the early stages of curating a mini textile and sound festival in Berlin in the summer. We'll keep you posted on them all.

In the meantime to kick the year off I'm delighted to be taking part in the In Conversation with Boys Who Sew event at Mac, Birmingham at 7.30pm on Tuesday 17 January. Curated by Trevor Pitt I'll be joining the now infamous Jamie Chalmers (aka Mr X Stitch), Stewart Easton whose exhibition Four Tragic Tales in currently on at MAC, and the Birmingham legend Twiggy for a fun evening of chat and debate about all matter of things embroidered.

Be great to see a few of you there.

2011-10-09T13:07:00.006+01:00

Click on the link for a selection of photos from our recent workshop and performance as part of Textile 11 - International Textile Biennial, Kaunas, Lithuania.
sampler-cultureclash photos - Textile 11.

Photos very kindly taken by Kristina Čyžiūt.

Textile 11 - Kaunas, Lithuania

2011-10-03T10:29:00.004+01:00

sampler-cultureclash head off to Kaunas, Lithuania this week to take part in the Textile 11 Biennial. I hope to meet up with old friends and meet lots of new folk. If you're there please sign up for the workshop on the 6th Oct and come see our performance on the Friday evening.

In Search of Berlin Wool

2011-09-20T20:22:00.008+01:00

Follow my new research project exploring 19th Century Berlin Wool work embroidery, as I take a collection of printed and hand painted patterns from the Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery's collection back to Berlin. The patterns were originally created in Berlin and I hope to re-trace their histories, their makers and make some new work inspired by the research and see if Berlin has any sheep. I'll be posting updates on the journey on the In Search of Berlin Wool blog. The research project is very kindly supported by Artquest and ACAVA through their 3 Months in Berlin residency programme in partnership with Milchhof Studios in Berlin, where I'll be resident. Also, with the very kind support of Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery who have given me fantastic access to, and advice on, their wonderful collection of original Berlin Wool work printed patterns.

The Paper Orchestra

2011-09-09T16:34:00.005+01:00

Berit Greinke and I will be taking part in the Connected Communities symposium next week 12-14Sept hosted by Culture Lab in Newcastle. We've been developing the Paper Orchestra idea, which we first tried out at Future Everything in Manchester back in May, now taking it to the next stage. We're running two workshops where delegates will be invited to play and test this model. They will be broadcast on Culture Lab Radio, hosted by Ko-Le Chen and Rachel Clarke. Monday and Tuesday 12:30-13.20 (GMT). Expect loud and messy.
http://culturelabradio.ncl.ac.uk/

We'll also be talking as part of the Wednesday session about co-creation.

We're looking forward to seeing and hearing what the other delegates are up to aswell.
Should be a fantastic three days. Maybe see a few of you there?

FLOW: Interchange

2011-07-11T22:22:00.009+01:00

FLOW: Interchange - From Cosgrove to Wadenhoe and back again!

Three artists, two weeks, one boat!

Well tomorrow I'm off to take part in a two week residency on a narrow boat with Simon Woolham and Jo Roberts. Invited by Fermynwoods Contemporary Art we'll travel along a section of the Grand Union canal and river Nene in Northamptonshire knowledgeably led by our captain Jim. He is actually called Jim and is very knowledgeable.

Amongst other things like steering, avoiding crashing into other boats and trying to work locks..we'll be making work tracing our journey, collecting sounds, songs, words, books; and debating and possibly even singing in waterside hostelries; inviting folk to join us on board and on shore to create together and to share stories about the canal, its people and learn some traditional making skills, such a cabin crochet.

On the 23rd July I'll be joined by Jason Singh for a live sound performance as we travel through the 2 mile-long Blisworth Tunnel.

If you happen to be in that area, please feel free to come and say hello and join us for a cup of tea on board. You can follow our progress on the FLOW website, where we'll be posting regular updates of the journey.
http://flow-northamptonshire.com/events/interchange/

Here's an extract from a great song to kick the journey off, courtesy of the wonderful Songs of the Inland Waterways website. Captains of the Waterways by Jon Raven, taken from the Bold Navigators: the story of England's canals in songs.

Fingers crossed that the weather holds out and that three artists sharing a small space for two weeks doesn't end up like an episode of Big Brother.

I'm looking forward to being on the water, slowing down, taking our time, being in the moment, exploring the environment, having time to think, reflect and make, learning more about canals and the people and cultures surrounding the waterways, and sharing the experience with other people.

Re-cap of May in Manchester - Part 2

2011-06-01T15:13:00.044+01:00

On the Saturday following the Pairings Conference Jason, Berit and I headed down to the truly wonderful Victoria Baths to take part in FutureEverything's Handmade event.

Handmade aimed to celebrate and showcase the new maker community that is emerging, "connecting the culture of traditional skills and materials with modern-day digital production, distribution and interaction techniques." It explored digital hacking, interactivities and DIY culture in a new forum for Crafters, Hackers and Digital Innovators. A place to share ideas and practice with each other and the wider public. Alongside the sixteen or so stalls at the all new Craft Fair, there were performances, workshops and installations.

Led by Berit, we presented our Paper Orchestra prototype, which involved hacking a beatbox stylophone. We wanted to explore the idea of creating a social instrument that could be played by more than one person, so we turned an instrument normally played by one person into an instrument that could be played by a group of people. We wanted to test this out by seeing what would happen when different people who did not know each other came together to form temporary groups to play the instrument.

First off, visitors created a folded paper shape: which became their control button for playing the stylophone, and using graphite pens, pencils and powder made contact marks on their folded shape. The graphite marks act as conductive points. Using conductive threads we attached the control buttons to wires that controlled each key of the stylophone. As a result each player was responsible for a single key and therefore beat of the stylophone. It was fascinating to see what shapes people created and which of those worked best.

Groups came together at varying points during the day to play, and it was really interesting to see how people started to construct rhythms with each other. Whilst people were playing Jason was sampling the sounds live, using Abelton Live, then looping, distorting and composing. The players then responded to Jason's composition adding new beats and layers as the sound built, Jason responding and so the circle continued. There were moments of chaos and some magical moments when the whole thing came together.

People seemed to really get into it, inviting their friends to come and have a go, and it did work as a social instrument. People were playing, laughing, chatting, constructing and composing together.

You can check out a review of the day, what other people were up to, and see photos of the baths on Crafts Magazine's blog.

Our plan is to develop the idea further. We'll be presenting the Paper Orchestra prototype no2 at the Connected Communities Symposium organised by CultureLab in Newcastle in September.

We had a blast. Thank you to everyone who came along and took part. All in all a great day, meeting great people, with great ideas, in a great venue. What more could you ask for on a rainy saturday in Manchester.

Re-cap of May in Manchester - Part 1

2011-06-01T12:52:00.010+01:00

Well we had a fun packed few days in Manchester in May.

To kick things off, we took part in the Pairings conference organised by MIRIAD at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU): The conference explored the three themes of Conversation, Collaboration and Material. On Thursday, I spent a wonderful morning in the embroidery machine room at MMU recording sounds of students and staff working on various machines. The machine room is such a fantastic resource that should continue to be cherished and developed. A huge thank you to Jill, Ben and Laura for helping out playing the machines.

I then took time to sample and loop extracts of the recordings. The plan was to include these sounds in our performance. We gave a 30 minute live performance on the Friday evening to mark the end of the two day conference. Four members of the collective worked together: Jason Singh, Yusra Warsama, Berit Greinke and myself.
We wanted to create an improvised piece based on the themes of the conference:"conversation, collaboration and material", so we could present a live piece that was a collaborative conversation between the four of us through using voices, analogue and digital machines, needles, threads, microphones, samplers and loop pedals, and physical material such as cloth. The themes also gave us the idea of exploring threes (even though the conference title was Pairings! and there were four of us.)
I've been re-reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau recently, and in one of the chapters he talks about three chairs. He says that one chair is for solitude, two chairs are for friendship and three chairs are for society. Thoreau's quote seemed a perfect way of summing up the nature of different people meeting in different contexts and some of the potential strengths and difficulties of collaboration. We used the quote from Walden as the start of the performance. So at different points throughout the performance there are single conversations, two people conversing and three or more. We start and end with the solitude of one.

You can listen to the performance on our soundcloud page here: http://soundcloud.com/sampler-culture-clash

Thank you to Alice, Helen and everyone at Miriad and MMU for inviting us to take part, for making the conference a great success and for helping to make the performance happen.

May in Manchester

2011-04-29T14:03:00.003+01:00

During May, we'll be camped down in Manchester for various collaborations, workshops and performances.

First off, Jason Singh and I will be working with a group of textile students from Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) on a collaborative sound project.

Next up, also at MMU, we'll be performing as part of the Pairings conference: conversations, collaborations and materials. The conference is on Thursday 12 and Friday 13th. All being well, we'll be doing an improvised performance at 5pm on the Friday as part of the finale to the two days. You can find out more info on the conference and how to book tickets here: Pairings.

The next day, Sat. 14th May, we'll be taking part in Handmade at the wonderful Victoria Baths as part of FutureEverything. There will be sixteen stalls all exploring how crafting, hacking and DIY are informing the development of digital technology. Please come down, see what people are up to and take part in our collaborative paper stylophone orchestra experiment.

Hope to see you at anyone of these events.

Textile Music

2011-03-14T17:09:00.018Z

In December last year I was very kindly invited by Becky Earley to take part in the University of the Arts, London's Textile Futures Research Centre's event Textile Music. You can find out more about the Centre's previous and current research by clicking on the link above.

I was asked to run a short one hour workshop with various members of the research group, exploring the question "what does our research sound like?" and to put together and play a DJ set of music referencing textiles and textile related words. Songs and band names were suggested by members of the group, some of my friends, and members of the sampler-cultureclash facebook group. This included traditional songs, songs sung whilst making textiles and, well anything connected to textiles, such as the theme tune to the TV series "Are You Being Served". You can listen to a selection of the songs via my you tube page: It's eclectic to say the least!
Textile Songs

My favourite was "anything by Fred Astaire"!! thank you Mr Gates for that one!
Please feel free to add suggestions. There's a page on the sampler-cultureclash facebook group in discussions.

My personal interest is traditional textile songs from Lancashire, where I grew up, which I've been researching over the last few months. Many of which I've discovered via the English Folk Dance and Song Society's amazing library and archive at Cecil Sharpe House in Camden, London.

For the workshop, participants discussed and explored the Centre's four themes:
1. Design-Science Textiles
2. Digital Textiles
3. Sustainable Textiles
4. Identity; Reflection

They then came together to create a new collective pixel drawing inspired by these discussions. In the evening the pixel drawing was played back through the piano player as a whole piece, and then played again this time sampling and looping sections using a loop pedal over the top of various drum breaks to create a new improvised piece of music. The "performance" was filmed so I'll post it when it's ready.

In the meantime, here's the piece in full

and here's a sound recording of the piece played in reverse, which I actually prefer.

I'll be experimenting with the piece, sampling and looping sections to see what else I can create from it.

A huge thanks to Becky and everyone at the TFRC for inviting me to take part and to everyone who suggested music and songs, in particular Helen Carnec, David Gates, Mark Alder, and Deirdre Nelson.

Nottingham Lace Part IV

2011-03-04T00:01:00.006Z

As promised here's a short film comprising looped samples of sound recordings of various embroidery machines in action during the workshop. I've just used a simple audio visualiser to turn the sounds back into visuals. I particularly like the looped section where the machine starts to sound like a human breath. I'd advise listening with headphones to get the full range of sounds.
warning: the film contains repeated flashing images.

Nottingham Lace Part III

2011-02-24T14:27:00.017Z

In the afternoon session of the workshop we camped down in the University's fantastic embroidery workshop, which is packed full of all manner of wonderful embroidery machines, from the hand and foot operated to the latest digital technology. The purpose of the session was to translate elements of the work we created in the morning into embroidered samples. To record the sounds that the machines made as we created each piece. For many people it was the first time they'd worked with several of the machines, so it was interesting to see how people threw themselves into that opportunity, grappling with each machine and learning about what was possible.

I'll post a sample of sounds in the next update.

I'd like to thank Katherine and Tom for inviting me up to Nottingham, and to everyone who took part in the day; for bringing such a wonderful selection of objects, sharing their stories and their imaginations and for throwing themselves into the workshop with such enthusiasm. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what we can do next with some of the ideas, work and connections we started.

Nottingham Lace - part II

2011-02-23T12:49:00.028Z

Just before the afternoon session, we created another collective pixel drawing piece. Each person drew an element of their object, in pixel form, on the roll of graph paper, and within a time limit of 2 minutes. They then moved round to the next drawing and continued to add another element from their object to that existing drawing. This continued until each person had contributed to each drawing. The result was one collective piece, comprising of thirteen collectively made drawings.

The idea was then to take a sample of this and re-create it with the digital embroidery machine, turning the drawing into a new embroidered piece, and taking the hand made into the machine and the digital. And to take sound recordings of the machine creating the piece.

Here's a short video of the digital embroidery machine previewing how the piece will be created, turning the drawing into an animation of process.

And here's a video comprising extracts of the piece being created. I love the fact that at some points the machine is creating sections in 4/4 time, the tempo increasing or decreasing depending on the length of stitch.

A huge thanks to Tessa for all her expertise and assistance helping us to translate and create this piece.

Nottingham Lace - part 1

2011-02-15T11:23:00.096Z

As a result of taking part in the Interlace conference in Nottingham, at the end of last year I was very kindly invited to run a one day workshop with the Centre for Advanced Textiles Research Group at Nottingham and Trent University.

The idea was to create a space where academic staff, technicians, and students could take time out from their usual daily responsibilities and routines in order to share, to create new work together and I hoped have some fun along the way too.

Given the importance of textiles to Nottingham, particularly the lace industry, I asked each participant to bring along a textile object related to the city. We had a fantastic selection of objects, including parts of a lace machine, wages ledgers, note books from a hand-frame knitter, a bearded needle, images of possibly the last Schiffli machine in production in Nottinghamshire, photos of closed lace centres and soon to be demolished factories and buildings, place names, pieces of lace and cloth made in Nottingham (several by participants), punch tapes, technical drawings and nursery rhymes about lace making.

As we talked about each object, several recurring themes came to the surface. Change, closure and loss featured heavily: mourning the decline of an industry, of old machines and buildings, the recognition of changes in industrial textile processes and the re-location of production and what that means to a place and its people. But also there was a great sense of joy and pride in the city, in technology, in the architecture of industry and commerce, in technological development, in the processes of making, and in the lives, skills and knowledge of the people involved in cloth production. And perhaps most of all the power of textiles to connect different people.

Following the format of previous sampler-cultureclash workshops, to get people to start working together, we then created a series of collective written pieces. Each person wrote a sentence about their object, then passed it onto the next person. That person then wrote another sentence about their object, using the last word of the previous sentence as the first word. This process continued until everyone had contributed to each piece. We recorded each poem, through the spoken word and song, hence turning the written word into sound.

Then, each person selected a word from their collective poem and drew this in pixel form onto a strip of grid paper and punched out holes so we could play it through a piano-player.

Here's a sample of my favourite sections. Each section has been looped in order to introduce repetition.

And here's one of the poems read by Tom Fisher combined with a looped sample from the pixel drawing piano-player piece. I love the way that Tom brings a series of seemingly disconnected lines alive through the rhythm in his reading. In thirteen lines this piece manages to encapsulate many of the themes we'd discussed earlier in the day, whilst also taking us into the realms of fantasy: will we ever discover what the needle was hiding behind its beard?

In the next post I'll cover the afternoon session of the workshop, where we camped down in the embroidery machine workshop; making, playing, and recording stitches, machines and sounds.

Berlin Part 3

2011-02-11T11:42:00.004Z

Following the Berlin workshop I've been experimenting with the collective pixel drawing we created. I've been sampling then looping some of the sounds the piece made when it was played through the piano-player. See the post Berlin, Berlin Berlin for the full piece.

Here's a selection of my favourite parts played back through an oscilloscope, so turning sound back into the visual.

Berlin Part II

2011-02-03T12:29:00.026Z

As promised in my last post, here's one of the collective poems we created during the workshop.

Whilst the process of writing is quick and in a sense they are nonsense poems, constructed of random sentences and thoughts joined together, I often find that within them there are always some magical lines.

I particularly love the start of this poem, and the lines
"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans" and
"Sharing Thoughts..Thoughts are free"

Here's a selection of my favourite lines from some of the other poems, and listen out for the several song lyrics that crop up.

Berlin, Berlin, Berlin

2011-02-02T14:11:00.054Z

Just thought I'd bring you up to date with some of the collaborations that we were involved in at the end of 2010.

First off Berlin, I was invited by Linda Florence and Prof. Zane Berzina from WeiBensee Kunsthochscule Berlin, to run a one-day workshop with their textile and surface design students.
Here's one of my favourite tracks about Berlin by Heidi Bruhl just to set the mood.

For this term's project brief, the students had been asked to look at collecting and collections. So with this workshop I wanted to work with them to explore the idea of collective making, and see what work we'd produce by sharing and working together for a day.

To start the day, all the students brought an amazing selection of food and drink so we could have breakfast together. Food has become a key part of our workshops, as it's a great way for people to relax, get to know each other and share.

We'd asked everyone to bring a photo of an object from a collection they'd been exploring, so we could use these as the starting point for creating. We went around the table with each person talking about their object and explaining why they had chosen it.

For our workshops it's important that people let go of being precious about their work, and to enjoy being spontaneous. This is essential if we're going to experiment and create together. It's not about the final work rather the enjoyment and process of collaborating.

For the first stage of collective making, we started to change the visual images into the written word and then into sound through the spoken word. We asked everyone to imagine their object as a person and write what kind of personality it would have and what that person was doing at that moment in time. I love the strange and beautiful images people conjure up as soon as the object is given a personality. Each person then passed their sentence onto the next person and wrote another sentence using the last word of the previous sentence as the first word. Each poem circulated around the table until everyone had contributed. The idea is to create collective nonsense poems.

In my next post, I'll put up one of the collective poems from the 30 or so we created.

Each person then chose their favourite word from one of the collective poems, and we drew each word using black-maker pens in pixel format onto a grid paper tape. Then we punched out holes in each black square so we could play this through a small piano player. Again turning, the word and the visual into sound.

Here's a video of the strip being played. I think there are some really interesting moments of sound within this particular strip.

In the afternoon, we created two further collective pixel drawings, this time using a variety of coloured pens and pencils. We gave everyone 3 minutes to draw a pattern based on their object, then when the time was up everyone moved one place to their right continuing the pattern created by the previous person, until everyone was back in their original place. I love the two pieces created. Not sure what we'll do with them yet. I'd love to turn elements of them into embroideries and further sound pieces.

To round the day off, I created a quick sound collage with samples of all the work we'd created, and played this sound piece back through an oscilloscope. Turning sound back into visual, so we'd come full circle by the end of the day.

I'd like to thank Linda, Zane and all the students for their great hospitality, and for participating in the workshop with such enthusiasm, and for being great fun to work with. I had a fantastic time, and I really hope we can take a sampler-cultureclash performance to Berlin in the very near future.

Photos by Linda Florence.

Sampling Stroud

2010-11-16T11:37:00.025Z

Over the last few months I've been working with Stroud International Textiles (SIT). Lizzi Walton SIT's Director very kindly invited me to think up some ideas for bringing sampler-cultureclash to the annual Festival, which takes place each May. Check the festival website or their facebook page for updates for the 2011 Festival which runs from 30 April to 21 May, and their year-round programme of activities.

We were successful in getting support from the Arts Council England through its Grants for the Arts scheme to help me carry out a week of research in Stroud. I wanted to meet and talk with a wide range of people, to find out what was happening there already, to learn more about the area and its textile heritage, its contemporary textile scene, and to see what textile industry remained, and explore how the concept of sampler-cultureclash might work in Stroud.

I wanted to explore a range of options for bringing some of the ideas we've been exploring through the project: sampling, experimenting, trialing, improvisation, collective making, sharing, "commons", mixing things up, word, sound, stitch, and performance, and to make new work, but to make this relevant to the place and to involve artists and different communities living and working in Stroud. I'm particularly interested in how audiences move from passive recipients of cultural activities to being active participants - making and contributing to the work. I think this is a particular strength of sampling culture.

“Sampling culture allows us to engage with, respond to, and re-use information. We become processors and creators of culture, rather than passive consumers.”

Of course, first off I had to see if people were interested collaborating.
Over the next few posts I'll give a brief overview of the research and the people I've met, and how plans for sampler-cultureclash's involvement in the Festival are developing.

Catching Up

2010-11-15T15:07:00.071Z

Well I've been away from the world of blogging over the last month or so, as we've been focusing on developing the sampler-cultureclash group on facebook, which now has a growing membership of over 300 members from across the globe. So, I thought it was about time I returned to the blog to update what's been happening, especially for those of you who don't use and/or can't stand facebook.

The last month has been hectic with research, workshops, travelling and talks, but all good fun, with interesting collaborations and of course getting to meet and work with some great people of all ages.

A few weeks ago we were invited to run a one-day workshop in partnership with the Embroiderers' Guild and Central Foundation School for Girls in Bow, East London. This was a short workshop to explore how each partner might work together to develop opportunities for the students at the school to learn about both embroidery (historic and contemporary) and sound sampling. Also, for the students to think about the connections between different art forms and how they might use this inter-disciplinary approach to create new embroidered, sound, and spoken and written work. The Embroiderer's Guild is interested in how it can broaden its work with young people, particularly those who might not ordinarily get involved in its Young Embroiderers' activities.

For this workshop we also invited Lauren Steeper to get involved in working with the students. Lauren is a recent graduate for the BA Embroidery course at Manchester Metropolitan University. I was particularly impressed by Lauren's latest body of work, where she has created a series of text based hand stitched embroideries based on a system she had devised from playing the Lottery each week. We're delighted that Lauren has got involved in the project. You can find out more about that project and her other work at Lauren's blog: Lauren Steeper.

So Jason, Lauren and I were joined for the day by 8 students from the school, many of whom were also involved in a music workshop during the week. We started the day by looking at and talking about a group of historic 18th and 19th Century embroidered samplers from the Embroiderers' Guild's collection. This was the first time that any of the students had seen historical pieces of embroidery like these. It's great that the Guild loans out such pieces, so that you can get up really close and examine the stitches, the colour of the threads in their current state, and you also get a much better idea of how they've been made. The students were impressed by the fact that the pieces had survived and were in such good condition, and of course by how intricate many of the embroideries were, particularly given the age of the girls who had created them. We then had a very interesting discussion about who made them, the time and the context in which they were made, and the types of stitches used. This led onto discussions about samplers and sampling. One student commented that her dad says "a boy is just a sample of his father" - sadly we didn't have time to debate that one fully!!

To start the creative process, we had chosen the text from the following embroidery, typed it out and cut up all the words and put them in a jar, continuing our work with cut 'n' paste text.

We then asked each student to pick a word from jar.

The students then worked with Jason to translate each of the words into sound, using Reaktor software to create a collective sound piece.

In the afternoon the students chose another two words from the jar, and we each created a sentence containing all three words. Lauren then worked with each student, so they stitched one of the words from each sentence, so we ended up with a selection of words that we used to create a collective stitched word collage.

Many thanks of course to all the students for taking part, for making the day fun and for their excellent contributions to discussions and debates about embroidery and sampling. And to everyone at the school and the Guild for helping us to make the workshop happen, and especially to Hopal for all her hard work, helping to bring the partnership together. We're looking forward to developing the next stage of collaboration, building upon this first workshop.

follow us on facebook

2010-11-01T21:59:00.003Z

Join our facebook group for the latest news.

Interlace Conference

2010-09-02T15:04:00.006+01:00

I'll be speaking about the sampler-cultureclash project at the Interlace Conference In Nottingham, which takes place next week 9th and 10th of September. The talk will be part of a series of presentations and discussions about some of the multi and inter disciplinary practice happening in contemporary textiles, alongside other artists and curators who have been collaborating with musicians, mathematicians and scientists.

Check the flyer below for more details. Looks like it's going to be a very interesting two days. I hope to see you there.

Changing Arts and Minds

2010-08-14T18:07:00.036+01:00

A couple of weeks ago sampler-cultureclash was invited to deliver a workshop as part of Craft Month in Northern Ireland. The workshop was a partnership with Leitrim Design House in southern Ireland and the Golden Thread Gallery in Belfast. We were invited to work with a group of women from both the Supports For Women project in Leitrim and the Draw Down the Walls project in Belfast. The Supports for Women project has been a year long initiative taking a group of women on a journey of self-discovery and personal growth while also challenging the old negative beliefs that have been inherited as a result of the conflict in Ireland, south and north of the border. The Draw Down the Walls project is a cross-community project working with a wide range of people who live near some of the controversial interface walls in Belfast.
You can find out more about each project here:
Changing Arts & Minds
Draw Down the Walls.

So, with much excitement and nervousness Yusra Warsama and I arrived in Belfast at the Golden Thread Gallery, to a very warm welcome.

As part of Craft Month, the group from Leitrim were showcasing a selection of the work they had created over the year in their exhibition Changing Arts and Minds. So, it was a very special occasion for them - a moment to celebrate and reflect on their individual and collective journeys and achievements. Both Yusra and I felt very privileged to have been invited to share such an important day with them.

To kick start the workshop we asked everyone to introduce themselves. Each of the women spoke with such passion, openness and humanism about how much being involved in each of the two projects had meant to them and how it had changed their lives in hugely positive ways. It was a very powerful, inspiring and moving twenty minutes, and a re-confirmation of the importance and the transforming nature of creativity, and of people working together to help each other when life is difficult and through times of conflict.

For this particular workshop we wanted to explore the process of crafting physical objects and people's relationship to particular objects through the written and spoken word. As with all our workshops we wanted to create an environment where we could work collectively to create new work. To turn the visual and material into written word, spoken word (sound) and then back into the visual.

We asked everyone to choose an object from the exhibition, but not a piece they had created themselves and to think about that piece and how it made them feel - what thoughts, emotions and ideas it raised.

Yusra then lead the group through a series of written and sound exercises and experiments to create a collection of poems, each containing the line "I stitched this sampler". I'm always amazed at how powerful this process is. How what seems like a simple act of choosing and exploring an object can result in such moving pieces of writing exploring loss; memories of and thoughts about close friends, mothers, fathers, families, lovers, children, the home; to moments of happiness and excitement about the future. I think all of us taking part experienced a whole range of emotions during the day from moments of fear and sadness to laughter and joy.

We then recorded each of the poems and played them back through an oscilloscope, thus turning the written and spoken words back into a single continuous moving thread.

Here's a short film of one of the poems created.

After Belfast, the exhibition returns to Leitrim and will be shown at the Leitrim Design House from 19 August until the beginning of September. Alongside the existing work, we're delighted that the exhibition will include the audio recordings, oscilloscope films and the piano player pixel drawing piece we created together during the workshop.

This has to be one of the most moving and inspiring days I've spent working on the sampler-cultureclash project to date, and we've had many. I hope we can continue to work together in some shape or form in the near future. A wonderfully inspiring group of women, both the women taking part and the women facilitating the projects.

I wish all of them the very best as they move forward.

And a huge thank you to Orlagh, Ruth, Anna-Marie and Deirdre for working so hard to enable the workshop take place.

Day 4 - Playing Reaktor live

2010-07-26T17:47:00.004+01:00

After the morning session hacking the Stylophone, we worked with Jason Singh exploring various software programmes that turn pattern into sound. If you've been following the project you'll know that one programme we've been working with is Reaktor, developed by Native Instruments.

Here's a snippet of the workshop where we start using the software to draw and play live, rather than just creating an image then storing that sound to use as a sample in future compositions.

Day 4 - Hacking a stylophone

2010-07-20T16:31:00.005+01:00

Led by Berit Greinke: 7 artists, a stylophone, a screen and squeegee, some binder, graphite powder, cloth, pencils, conductive thread, and live sampling, to create a new prototype for a collectively played textile sound machine.

Here's a short film of us hacking, making, and playing the new machine, with live sampling by Jason Singh. All the noises you hear are created by us playing the stylophone using the newly created textile buttons to control each button of the original stylophone. Jason is sampling, distorting and looping these live, then introduces a drum break underneath. The advantage of using cloth is that you introduce much more flexibility when controlling the stylophone, for example you can play and distort a note for longer, and you turn it into an instrument a group of people can play together, rather than it just being for a solo performer.

Day 3 - talking, sharing, making

2010-07-16T16:46:00.028+01:00

Our first day at MNAC (The Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest). MNAC very kindly helped to host the week and allowed us to use their Media Lab for the week's workshop.

The Museum is housed in the Palace of the Parliament building, built in the 1980's and the infamous former residence of the Ceaucescus. Raised on a man-made hill the building dominates Bucharest's skyline. It seems like wherever you are in the city the building looms in the background, out of the corner of your eye, or on the horizon. A conscious decision one thinks. A whole area of the city was demolished to make way for this monstrosity of a building, apparently the second largest in the world. The surviving buildings around the Parliament show how beautiful and productive the area must once have been, with a mixture of factories, warehouses and houses. It's definitely worth visiting these parts of the city, away from the usual tourist route.

MNAC is housed in a part of the building that was never finished, the rest of the building now being Government offices. The fact that there is a contemporary art gallery in this building is bizarre - a place for expression and creativity amongst a sea of bureaucracy inside a former dictator's palace. I wasn't sure how the building and the spaces within it would affect the collaboration, the creativity and the resulting work. Oppress or inspire? But that's one thing I like about Bucharest, it's full of these sort of contradictions and tensions. You can't take anything in this city for granted.

Given that the museum is housed where it is security is super high for all visitors. Even more so when you have seven artists with all manner of electrical cables, strange machines, liquids, etc turning up. Trying to explain that it wasn't bomb making equipment, but materials for an artists' workshop took some doing, but eventually we were let through. I wondered how Tate Modern would cope if they introduced this level of security checks!!

There's a cafe terrace on the top floor with amazing views of the city, so we sat, gathered our thoughts, drank coffee, smoked cigarettes (oh yeh you can still smoke indoors in Romania, which takes some getting used to again, after the smoking ban in the UK), and looked out onto the surrounding area - a barren, overgrown wilderness, although I hope a haven for wildlife and the dogs. There's a growing movement to get this area opened as its currently blocked in by security walls, to create a new walking and cycle route into the city without having to go around it. Let's hope they succeed as it's currently a waste of what could be a great new and much needed green social space for the people of the city.

In the morning we each introduced and presented our work, as a way of us starting to appreciate each other's individual creative practices and some of the connections between our work.

In the afternoon we started the first collaborative workshop. In the afternoon, we created a 10-metre collective pixel drawing on a roll of grid paper, based on patterns and iconography of Romanian embroidery from the Peasant Museum, and other images in our heads at that moment in time.

Here's a video of us creating and then playing that piece through a player piano machine.

Dancing and Dogs

2010-07-14T17:17:00.018+01:00

Here's one of my favourite embroidery patterns from the Museum of the Romanian Peasant. A group of dancers and dogs. My favourite embroideries are the most graphic and the simplest, using repeating iconography with either red or red and black thread on a natural cotton or linen.

Here's a link for more information on traditional romanian dances, including chain dances as depicted on this embroidery.

Dogs are a constant feature of Bucharest, and at night alongside the sound of cars, a major sound of the city. Packs of dogs hanging out together on street corners, disused parts of land, behind garden gates, outside fast food chicken joints waiting for a scrap of food, wandering the streets alone, and risking their life as they wander across or sit in Bucharest's roads. A living reminder of the results of Ceaucescu destroying much of the city, evicting residents and thus setting their pet dogs and now their descendants free to roam the streets.

One day, one particular dog joined us for a stroll across the city, before disappearing under a gate, easily avoiding the high security surrounding the Parliament building. During the week we've sampled many of the dogs' barking for use in future recordings and compositions. They seemed only too pleased to help out.

An obvious soundscape of Bucharest, but too significant a one to ignore.

Day 2 - Visiting the Museum of the Romanian Peasant

2010-07-13T11:40:00.005+01:00

Day 2:

Gathered at the Museum of the Romanian Peasant - Muzeul Taranului Roman. I've written about the Museum before in previous posts, but if you haven't visited, you really must.

The idea for the visit was for the group to learn more about traditional Romanian textiles and embroidery as part of wider Romanian rural working life, to see the work in real-life, and to get inspiration for the week ahead.

The Museum is ordinarily closed on Mondays, so very very generously they had agreed to give us a special tour of the museum and its archive. Ion Blajan, Head of Collections at the Museum, guided us through the collection. I've visited the museum on a number of occasions, but it makes such a huge difference having an expert to explain and guide you. Ion was incredibly passionate and of course knowledgeable about the collection. The collection is overwhelming, particularly the textiles- there's so much to absorb. I always find it a very inspiring, but at the same time draining, experience.

The highlight of the visit was being taken behind the scenes into the archives. We were shown some truly amazing embroidered sample books. I could have stayed all afternoon looking and finding out more about these books and the embroideries contained within them, but sadly we had very limited time. You can by arrangement with the Museum go and study the archive, so I plan to go back and really research their collection at some point - the iconography, the techniques, the histories of who made them, where they were made and their social significance. At the moment it seems like I'm barely scratching the surface, only really being able to appreciate their aesthetic value, and a tiny part of their social value.

A huge thank you to Ion and everyone at the Museum for their warm welcome and for giving up their time so generously.

Back from Bucharest

2010-07-08T15:38:00.006+01:00

Well, I'm back from an inspiring, challenging, fun and creative week in Bucharest. So over the next week or so I'll post events of each day.

Day 1:

Arrived late sunday. Then Jason, Berit and I met up with the Romanian artists taking part: Carla Szabo, Catalin Matei, and Cosmin Tapu. Sadly and annoyingly the Turkish artists Pinar Basoglu and Gozde Ilkin couldn't fly as the airline had overbooked tickets for the plane..nice one Turkish Airlines. Finally some sun and a warm evening after the wet London weather. Off to an open air bar in a park for laid back club night Sunday Scoop, which Cosmin was dj-ing at. Eating, drinking, chatting, meeting people and even playing Wii. Somehow, with luck more than skill, I even beat Berit at Wii bowling, which was sadly the only time over the next couple of weeks that the English were to win against the Germans! Great DJ-set from Cosmin.

Met music journalist Iona Moldoveanu, who publishes the website freshgoodminimal

. If you're into experimental sound and electronic music it's a brilliant site. Ioana has just started a new record label BuzzRo, supporting new electronic music from Romania. Their first compilation BUZZRO! 2010 features a track from one of the artists taking part this week - Catalin
Matei aka Silly Conductor.
The complilation is published with a Creative Commons licence.
Listen here: BUZZRO!2010

A perfect, relaxed start to the week ahead.

Sampler Facebook group

2010-07-05T17:03:00.003+01:00

Join us on Facebook

for the latest news and photos and film clips from our first international laboratory in Bucharest.

Sampler hits Bucharest

2010-06-17T12:11:00.006+01:00

Well after a year of planning, we're finally off to Romania for one week for our first international laboratory. We've pulled together a really interesting line up of designers, dj's, textile artists, sound artists and curators to take part in the workshops: UK - Jason Singh and Berit Greinke; Romania- Carla Szabo, Cosmin Tapu and Catalin Matei, and from Turkey - Pinar Basoglu and Gozde Ilkin.

Over the next week, we'll be posting some highlights of the laboratory as we work together exploring the connections between textiles and sound.

The project has been developed in partnership with electronic music pioneers Rokolectiv, MNAC (the National Museum of Contemporary Art), and the Museum of the Romanian Peasant all in Bucharest, and c-u-m-a (Contemporary Utopian Management Agency) from Istanbul. It's very kindly funded by the British Council's Creative Collaboration Project Fund, which supports collaborations between the UK and south east Europe.

Tom Dice - new UK Hip Hop

2010-06-07T17:45:00.005+01:00

Tom Dice, long time friend, dj, rapper and music producer, fellow crate digger extraordinaire and sampler-cultureclash collaborator has just released some new tracks. New UK Hip Hop. Check them here at his myspace page and give him your support.
Tom Dice

Video of Craft Rally performance

2010-05-24T17:38:00.004+01:00

Click on the link below to watch a short video montage very kindly put together by Holly Stead, of us preparing and performing at the Craft Rally event back in March.
Thanks so much Holly for coming along and filming for us. Enjoy.

sampler-cultureclash at the Craft Rally

The other week I had a great day looking at students' work back up in Manchester. I was really impressed with each of their projects and how they'd responded to the project brief. I'm hoping to profile some of their work over the next month or two, so watch this space.

Oscilloscope poems

2010-05-12T13:15:00.012+01:00

We've been using oscilloscopes in several of our live performances to translate sounds into visuals (thanks to the fine Mr Rob Rainbow, ex Light Surgeons). I particularly like the visual resemblance of the sound waves to threads. For more information about how oscilloscopes work, click on the link above.

Here is one of Yusra's poems created during our first workshop, way back in May 2008, played through the oscilloscope. The left and right audio channels have been combined into a single channel, so it's as though the piece starts with two twisted threads, which depending on Yusra's delivery unravel and re-form throughout the piece.

VTS Sound experiments No1 & 2

2010-05-11T17:37:00.009+01:00

Here's the first two sound experiments from the audio pieces we recorded at the Visual Thinking Symposium workshop. Neither are supposed to be finished pieces, I'm just playing about to see what might happen.

No 1 is the drawing sound loops, gradually layered on top of each other every 4 bars, until you end up with 8 layers at once, then reducing down to one layer of sound.

No 2 is constructed only with samples of the spoken word pieces, where I've started to chop up words and elements of their breathing between words, to create tiny samples to form very different noises and rhythms.

Sounds and Words - Visual Thinking Symposium

2010-05-04T12:03:00.022+01:00

As promised here's a couple of sound pieces created by the participants in our workshop.

For the first piece, we invited participants to play their collective drawing using Berit's sound pencils and then very simply by using the loop pedal, recorded and layered six of these random sounds.

The second piece comprises a selection of the written / spoken pieces about the participant's favourite tool for making. Needless to say, given that the vast majority of the participants were textile artists, needles and sewing machines feature highly, although in the mix there were pencils, a mouse for your computer, and a tea bag. I love the fact that a tea bag featured as someone's favourite tool for making - very important tea to the creative process. Also, there's a common theme emerging about the temperamental nature of tools and machinery - one of their frustrating but also endearing qualities is the fact that they don't always work all of the time. Also, once they've stopped working for their original purpose, how they can be used for another?

Using garage band for ease at the moment, I've just started a series of simple sound experiments, layering and sampling both the noise and the spoken word pieces and seeing what happens. I'll post a selection of these experiments in the next post.

During the workshop we recorded 30 of the written pieces onto cassette, which at the end of the day we then chopped up into 30 sections - and which now look like this. hmm!!

The plan is to randomly put these back together to re-create a new sound piece - old skool cut n paste. Ah, brings back not very fond memories of my youth endlessly trying to fix my cassettes after they'd got mashed in the tape player.

Visual Thinking Symposium

2010-04-29T16:57:00.026+01:00

Well, Berit and I had a great day at the Visual Thinking Symposium organised by the Textile Study Group and the Hub. It was a pleasure to spend the day discussing different ideas and approaches to the creative process. There was a good range of topics (from the inspiration and use of native materials such as scottish peat, to the creative journey through re-configuring a road map of the British isles, and touching on the visual language of people with Alzheimers: a subject very close to my heart. I liked the fact that there were a mixture of voices from makers, curators and philosophers. I particularly liked the talk by Dr Matthew Kieran (professor of philosophy and the arts at the University of Leeds) which explored the ways in which character and motivation are crucial to artistic creativity. He presented really well, but even then I struggled to keep up with some of the concepts he discussed, so I'd really like to see him talk again, so I can get to grips with and start to question his thinking, and explore the subject further.

Following the morning session of talking, listening and questioning, we hoped that our workshop - "Looping Something From Nothing" would provide a space for continued discussion but in a relaxed, creative and fun way. The workshop aimed to explore one of the central themes of the symposium: "what processes do we use to make something from nothing?" and also our continued approach to creating social spaces for collective making.

We started with two DIY loop tables we'd constructed during lunch. One holding a loop of blank paper, the other a loop of blank rug canvas. Our other materials were some pencils, graphite powder, some needles and a pile of old cassettes I'd dug out from under the house, and a blank cassette to record onto. 30 people took part.

To kick start the thinking we asked each participant to choose a favorite tool they used for making and then to describe what they do with that tool when they first start to use it. We then asked them to imagine that tool as a person, and to describe what kind of person it would be.

Each person then took it in turns to record their thoughts onto the cassette tape, through a loop pedal. It still amazes me how beautiful and moving some of these written pieces can be with something as simple as describing a making tool. Also, how the human voice, through intonation really brings these words and objects alive.

With the two looped pieces, we asked people to start with a word from their written pieces and then to freely move on in any direction with their marks, whether through drawing or stitching with the tapes. For the drawn piece we gave people a selection of sound pencils that Berit had constructed. The pencils make sound as you draw, using your body and the graphite in the pencil to generate and connect the current. With the fabric piece we were randomly sampling pieces of tape and thereby stitching sounds directly into the piece. Every ten minutes we rolled the fabric and paper round and asked the participants to continue working on their neighbors piece, until everyone had contributed to both the stitched and drawn loops. There was lots of chat, debate and laughter during the making which was great.

At the end of the afternoon we then played the drawing back using the sound pencils as amplifiers. We asked the group to join hands whilst one person held the pencil at one end of the drawing and the last person played the drawn marks. Using our loop pedal - as a simple way of recording, looping and composing live, we recorded and looped some of these sounds to create a collective sound piece.

When we're doing these workshops it's always interesting to see what works and what doesn't, and I like the fact that we don't know what people are going to create, which allows room for lots of surprises.

Here's a couple of short film clips of the workshop. I'll try to post the sound piece later.

A huge thank you from myself and Berit to all the participants for throwing themselves into the workshop with such enthusiasm, and to the Hub and the Textile Study Group for inviting us to take part. It was a great day.

Events

2010-04-22T10:49:00.004+01:00

There are two sampler cultureclash related events taking place this weekend.

1) Berit Greinke and I will be running a 3 hr workshop as part of the Visual Thinking Symposium at the Hub - the national centre for craft and design in Sleaford, Lincolnshire. The symposium forms part of Visual Thinking Unpicked an exhibition by the Textile Study Group exploring the influences and inspirations behind the creative process. 30 people have signed up to the workshop, so it's going to be a packed but hopefully enjoyable afternoon working together. Our workshop "looping something from nothing" explores the connections between sound, word, drawing and stitch and the process of collective making. Our starting point is a group of people, a blank cassette tape, a roll of blank paper and a roll of white fabric. Let's hope that's not our ending point.

2) Whilst over in Romania, our friends Rokolectiv are holding their annual electronic sound and music festival in Bucharest this weekend. Check their website www.rokolectiv.ro for further details of the line up and venues. You can also follow them on facebook

Sampling Tunbridge Ware - Day 4

2010-04-20T17:37:00.006+01:00

Today we started to refine some of the content we've created over the last three days. Also, how we might present some of this work at the end of project showcase event on Friday.

During the day, Jason worked with three of the participants, all budding musicians, to create a new audio track based on Tunbridge Ware patterns.

A couple of the participants brought in guitars and other musical instruments which we sampled to experiment with later.

We continued stitching and Yusra worked with a couple of participants to create a word collage of all the written pieces we've created so far. Which we plan to cut and paste to turn back into a spoken word piece.

Friday's the big day tomorrow and there's still lots to do, and as all the participants haven't been here for the last two days it feels as though we're a day behind. But that's cool we'll see how it all comes together tomorrow.

PS. Thanks to J for the great photos in this post.

Sampling Tunbridge Ware - Day 3

2010-04-18T17:16:00.002+01:00

Today we had less people attend, which is inevitable when you're running a session over five days during the easter holidays. But it meant we had a relaxed day. Two new participants Anne and Helen who are friends of the museum joined us for the day. They both took part in stitching and worked with Yusra to create and record two new written pieces, again based on a piece of Tunbridge Ware. We found out that Anne also loved singing, so she wanted to sing her piece. Her piece is based on these two objects from the collection, part of a seamstress's tools.

She stood up to the mic and seconds later a beautiful voice emerged floating across the room. Jason and I looked on and listened in awe. That takes some doing, to stand in front of people you'd only just met and sing something so beautifully, with words you'd only just written a few moments before.

Earlier in the morning, Kathie had introduced the day explaining the links between berlin wool work embroidery and early Tunbridge Ware designs: showing a selection of berlin wool work samples she had created herself.

Guided by Kathy's embroidery skills and expertise we started to create our own embroidered samples based on a sample of the visual work were started yesterday. We hope that by the end of the week that everyone will have contributed to a collective sampler, which will be donated to the museum's collection.

Alongside the stitching, participants continued to work with Jason to create a sound piece using the sampled patterns in Reaktor they created yesterday. One of the participants brought in two friends to work together to create a collaborative track - the result I'll post later in the week.

It's great. After only three days we're already starting to build up a diverse collection of written and

spoken word, sounds, images, stitch, patterns and now song.

Sampling Tunbridge Ware - Day 2

2010-04-14T23:06:00.007+01:00

Today we focussed on visual sampling and turning some of these visuals into sound.

To kick things off and wake us all up, Yusra asked participants to write their first thought of the day. Yusra will be using a selection of these words, weaving them into a poem she's working on during the week.

Them, we started to work on two 10 metre rolls of graph paper to create our visual samplers. We took black and white photocopies of the objects we had selected yesterday and using cut and paste techniques started to create new designs from them. Various people worked directly onto the graph paper with pens to create patterns, images and words, again all inspired by the work we started yesterday. With this exercise I like the fact that everyone works in very different ways and people's personalities start to emerge as a result of the process they use to create these images. Some people are very particular and precise, some work small, others large, some are very freestyle and deconstruct patterns, whilst others work with letters and words. The pieces will continue to grow over the week.

In the afternoon, Jason led a session where he got us thinking more about sound, counting, cycles and repetition, based around learning an Indian classical ten beat cycle. Watching everyone's concentration as they followed Jason's lead and hand actions was beautiful.

Then the group started to take samples from the large visual sampler drawings we were were working on in the morning. Using Reaktor software each of us took it in turns to create a sound from each image.
I'll post a film of the images with their sounds later in the week. These initial sounds will be the building blocks from which to create our sound pieces.

I love the fact that everyone so far has just thrown themselves into each session or exercise we've done with open minds. I hope people are starting to understand why we might be doing some of these sessions? It feels like they are. It was another fun and inspiring day. It felt like everyone started to bond with some great conversations and discussions, and the work continues to grow in unexpected ways.

Sampling Tunbridge Ware - Day 1

2010-04-13T23:37:00.000+01:00

Well today was Day 1 of the Sampler meets Tunbridge Ware project. Four of the sampler collective (myself, Jason, Yusra and Kathie) headed off to Tunbridge Wells this morning to start a week long workshop at the Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery, working with residents from the town and surrounding areas.

On the way there we still weren't quite sure who was going to be taking part, but we were delighted to be welcomed by a group of 15 or so participants of all ages from 11 yrs old upwards. A great bunch of people to kick things off.

Over the week, we'll be collaborating to create new sound pieces for the museum inspired by its amazing collection of Tunbridge Ware. Click on this link to find out more about Tunbridge Ware and its history. We'll be showcasing a selection of the work we've created together in a performance this Friday night from 6-8pm at the museum. It's free so please come on down.

In true sampler style we'll be mixing up the visual, pattern, word, sound, movement and performance and with this particular project the innovative woodworking techniques used for making Tunbridge Ware. More on that in a future post, as I still can't quite get my head around all of the complicated processes involved in its production. Here's a link to the museum's website giving a brief introduction to the process: Making Tunbridge Ware.

Like some of our previous sampler workshops we're exploring how we can create new collective work inspired by traditional techniques and historical objects. One of the ideas informing the project is to explore how the museum can get visitors, in particular young people, to spend more time exploring the Tunbridge Ware collection, perhaps looking at the some of the objects in a new light. And hopefully to get more visitors to understand how unique, innovative and significant it is. I remember the first day I visited the museum, I spent the afternoon sat in the room watching with slight confusion and bewilderment as visitors walked through barely glancing at any of the objects. I'm certain that isn't true of all visitors. There I sat almost bursting with excitement at not only how technically complex and visually inspiring they were, but imagining the creative possibilities of working with the collection. Perhaps many visitors have got so used to seeing it, that they no longer see it? Do people think it's old wooden objects in a darkened room? That's one question I'll be asking people over the week.

Having learnt more about embroidered samplers for the last couple of years, one of the things I like most about Tunbridge Ware is its connection with Berlin wool work embroidery . Much of the early Tunbridge Ware took its visual inspiration directly from Berlin Wool work embroidery designs, with makers recreating these patterns in wood.

So it's incredibly exciting to think that we are now going to take these wooden objects, inspired by embroidery into another art form - sound - and then perhaps even turning those sounds back into embroidery and new Tunbridge Ware.

Like all the workshops and events we've done so far we started the week with a blank canvas and a group of people - many of whom hadn't met each other before; some objects (fantastic objects - it has to be said!); open minds and our imaginations. Not knowing what we're going to have produced by the end of the week, but thinking of it as a playground for ideas.

To kick things off, we spent the first part of the day exploring the magical place that is the Tunbridge Ware room in the Museum. We each chose a favourite Tunbridge Ware object from the collection.

We then took it in turns to explain why we'd chosen the piece.

I chose this piece: a wooden letter box for the hall.

After lunch, Yusra then led a session using the objects, that everyone had selected, as the starting point to create both written and spoken word pieces.

We started with ten words describing the object and then created written pieces where we imagined the object as a person. That particular exercise delivered some moving, dark, funny and beautiful prose.

We then recorded each of these pieces. So at the end of day one we've started to create a library of images, words, prose and sound recordings to play with further over the week.

At the end of day, as we all sat round reflecting on what we'd done and created, one of the participants said that she'd had a great day. It had been really good fun and that she made made some new friends. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect start. A huge thank you to everyone who took part today. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Sampling Tunbridge Ware

2010-04-08T13:50:00.000+01:00

Just a quick update on all things sampler:

Craft Rally:
Well I'm pleased to report that the performance we did recently for the Craft Rally went down a storm. I'm just waiting to get photos and a video of the performance, so when I do I'll post them up. A huge thank you to everyone who took part: Kathie, Jan, Yusra, A.Dee, Pepperpot, Tom Dice and Berit - a brilliant mix of embroidery, sound, music, graffiti and calligraphy, dance, turntables, machines, song, film and the spoken word. And of course a huge thank you to Helen Carnec who curated the event, everyone at Artquest and the Crafts Council for inviting us to take part in the day.

Sampling Tunbridge Ware:
Next week some of the collective are involved in a week long workshop (Monday 12 -Fri 16th April, sessions run from 10am to 4pm each day) in partnership with Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery. We'll be exploring the museum's amazing collection of Tunbridge Ware, and working with a group of local residents of all ages creating new sound and stitched pieces to go back into the museum's collection. If you fancy coming along and joining in that would be amazing. Click on the link above "sampling tunbridge ware" for details.
There will be a showcase event and performance of the work we've collectively made during the week from 6-8pm at the Museum.

Manchester:
I will be going back to Manchester in the next couple of weeks to see some of the work that the students have made during their project exploring samplers and sampling. Can't wait to see what they've come up with.

Sampler at the Craft Rally

2010-03-14T17:45:00.000Z

Well my head is well and truly full of planning for the Craft Rally event curated by Helen Carnec, that we're taking part in on Thursday 25th March at Chelsea College of Art & Design. Click on the link above for details of how to book tickets for the day. Helen's pulled together a diverse range of events, discussions and workshops, so I can hope some of you can make it down to contribute.

Several of the sampler-cultureclash collective will be taking part in an improvised performance in the evening at approx 7pm, along with some special invited guests thrown into the mix. We've no idea what we've got planned yet but I promise an interesting line up.

Look forward to seeing you there.
x

"Manchester, so much to answer for.."

2010-03-02T21:26:00.000Z

I don't know why but everytime I say Manchester, I automatically follow it with the words of Morrissey "..so much to answer for" from the Smith's song "Suffer Little Children".

Anyway, not sure why I'm ramblin' on about that, but to update you on a great day that we spent, a couple of weeks ago, with students on the BA.Hons Embroidery Course at Manchester Metropolitan University. Having spent my twenties living, working and dj-ing in Manchester I always love going back.

In the morning we gave a presentation about the sampler-cultureclash project to a packed lecture theatre of maybe 100 students or so. Needless to say, we were incredibly nervous but excited about the opportunity to talk about the project with the students. It was great that two of the collaborators - Jason and Yusra - were there, particularly given that Jason had just arrived back from a month in India and Yusra was there with her new child Azariah, only 4 weeks old. That was particularly special!

The presentation seemed to go down really well, with lots of questions and very positive feedback from the students and tutors. If you were there I'd love to hear your honest comments about the presentation and the project. You see I never know whether I'm rattlin on, or presenting the story in an articulate and interesting way! Hopefully the latter but probably somewhere in between.

We'd been invited up to help kick start a project the first year students were working on about samplers. To help them think about different ways of sampling, what sampling is and could be, and how historical objects and traditional processes can inform contemporary creative practice and vica versa.

In the afternoon we ran a short workshop with about 30 students from the 1st year of the course, plus a couple of other students who were exploring the connection between sound and stitch in their work. The aim was to create an improvised collective sound piece combining word, pattern and sound. We worked in three groups, with each student having a go at creating pixel drawings both individually and collectively, some of which the students working with Jason then translated via Reaktor into sound, whilst another group worked with Yusra exploring word and the voice through creating their own collective vocal orchestras. The groups then rotated so they took part in each excercise.

Here's a link to a selection of photos from the workshop.
sampling manchester
I particularly love the way that the collective pixel drawings take shape as people contribute. A word left unfinished then being deconstructed and dissolving into a single square.

I'm waiting to get copies of the word excercises back, so I'll post a selection of the individual and collective poems in a future post, so watch this space. Jason and I plan to work on the sound piece the students started during the day, hopefully going back and working with some of the students further.

I can't wait to see and hear what the students come up with over the next few weeks, and I hope to go back up north to talk to them about how things are progressing, and of course to see the finished work. I also want to to go back into the amazing room full of all manner of embroidery machines to think about how we might access that resource to inform and create future work.

So a huge huge thank you to Isabel, Kate and everyone from MMU and of course in particular a massive thank you to all the students for such a warm welcome and for making the day so much fun and for throwing yourselves into the workshop so enthusiastically. Good luck with the project.

We left feeling very inspired.

Singing away to the click of the shuttle

2010-02-18T00:59:00.000Z

Well this week is well and truly packed with sampling shenanagins, in Manchester and later in the week in Tunbridge Wells. More about both of those in my next couple of posts.

To kick start the week, on Monday evening I started a short six-week evening class about English Folk songs at the English Folk Dance and Song Society hq - Cecil Sharpe House in Camden. This has been inspired by my trips to Romania and Turkey and conversations with members of the sampler collective about folk, and other popular, songs from around the world that are sung whilst either making textiles, or are about textiles.

I wanted to start my research by finding out more about songs from england, scotland, wales and ireland and for the last few months I've wanted to visit the EFDSS library and to search their amazing archive of recordings and printed broadsides. So when I found out about the course, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. 30 of us crammed into the room, a much more diverse group of people than I thought it might be. It was great, so six weeks of listening to, discussing, debating and learning more about the traditional songs, in particular those recorded and collected by the likes of Cecil Sharpe, Peter Kennedy and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

We were given a number of handouts to take away and read. So on the train up to manchester later that evening I started to read through them. The first that caught my eye, needless to say given my interest in music and textiles and the fact that I grew up in Lancashire, was an article entitled " Singing away to the click of the shuttle - musical life in the handloom weaving communities of Lancashire" - written by a R.P. Elbourne and published in the Local Historian Vol 12 No 1 (feb 1976). In summary the article explores the nature of pre-industrial music making in Lancashire by people involved in domestic based hand weaving production, even exploring the weaver-poet. See, it's all connected, and by now I should really no longer be surprised!!!!

It's a great little article, and I particularly liked the section about the Deighn Laycocks or Larks of Dean, named as such due to the beauty of their singing.

"In his autobiography, the cotton spinner Moses Heap places the work-rhythms of domestic industry in a fresh perspective: ' A great deal of hand-loom weaving was carried on in the homes, both cotton and woollen goods...but many of our musical friends were so fond of singing and fiddling that their looms would be idle until about Tuesday night, then they would work night and day to finish their allotted task before Saturday.'

At peak periods such as before the Christmas holidays he explains that "Play hours were nearly given up, and whole nights would be spent at the loom, weavers occasionally striking up a hymn or Christmas carol in chorus. A few hours of the late morning would perhaps be given to rest; work would then be resumed, and the singing and rattle of shuttles would be almost incessent during the day."

Oh, and I highly recommend the book English Folk Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L.Lloyd published by Penguin as part of its English Journeys series.

Grafitti stitch chairs for Haiti appeal

2010-02-06T16:12:00.000Z

As part of the San Francisco leg of the Open Source Embroidery exhibition, curated by Ele Carpenter, that we've been taking part in we invited visitors to graffiti stitch two yellow armchairs (see images below) whilst they listened to a selection of audio tracks created by the sampler-cultureclash collective.
It's great to see how much the chairs have been transformed during the exhibition, from blank yellow canvas into a new archive of communal stitched work, with personal tags, warm wishes and even an english penny stitched into the chair requesting "a penny for your thoughts" - beautiful.

The chairs will be auctioned alongside a wide range of other contemporary and folk art on 21 February in the city of Tiburon to raise money for the survivors of the recent terrible earthquake in Haiti. The auctioneer will be curator Ted Cohen. Thanks to everyone at the museum and Ele for helping to arrange all this, and including the work in the auction.

We are delighted that the chairs, decorated by so many people during the exhibition, will be going to such an important cause, and we hope that they will raise as much money as possible, and end up in a good home.

The Auction takes place on Sunday 21 February
Silent Auction 12-4.30pm / Live Auction 5pm
Tiburon Town Hall, 1505 Tiburon Blvd
USA.

I'll let you know what happens.

Sampling 2010

2010-01-10T19:06:00.000Z

Hello folks and belated new year's greetings from all the Sampler collective.
2010 looks like it's going to be another fun packed year of experimenting and collaboration. All being well we start the year with launching the sampler section of the V&A website, then working with students from the BA Embroidery course at Manchester Metropolitan University and the Whitworth Art Gallery, followed by a project with Tunbridge Wells Museum and Art Gallery working with young people in the area exloring the museum's amazing collection of Tunbridge Ware, then in early summer we hope to bring together all the collaborators from the UK, Romania and Turkey for the first workshop and performance in Bucharest. My next post will be a round up of my trip to Turkey last year.

If that wasn't enough we're starting to explore connections for a collaboration in India.

Speaking of which, last week I had a brilliant catch up with Jason before he headed off to India to take part in the Jaipur International Heritage Festival. Here's a fantastic clip of Jason and Morchang player Raies Khan performing last year at Jodhpur RIFF.
As Jason and I chatted about ideas and aspirations for the sampler project over the next year, we talked about social events that bring people together through song, music, poetry and dance focussed around textiles. Jason then introduced me to the amazing film Latcho Drom, which through music and song, follows the Roma communities of India, Egypt, Turkey, Hungary, Romania and Spain. A hugely inspiring, uplifting, challenging, upsetting, thought provoking and powerful film.

Contemporary Utopia Management

2009-12-07T10:05:00.002Z

Well today, after the religious holidays, I had my first meeting with Esra and Ece from CUMA, Contemporary Utopia Management, a not for profit arts organisation that in their words "aims to activate urban and rural communities by creating contemporary art projects and acting as a mentor for arts organisations and initiatives".

I really liked their ethos and their approach, and some of the projects they had done, particularly those working with rural communities. They were planning a flash mob event on Saturday, apparently the first in Turkey, and an idea I really like..the Istanbul Complaints Choir. Given the issues around freedom of speech, this seems like a very brave initiative. So I've registered my mobile number and wait to hear where to meet.

They were both really friendly and incredibly helpful, providing me with a whole list of potential people to contact. Just what I was hoping for. As with Bucharest you just need to meet some people on the ground who are open and well connected, and know what's happening and a whole world starts to open up. I couldn't have asked for a more welcoming and perfect start.

Thank you Esra and Ece for a great welcome and such generosity:))

You can find out more about CUMA at www.c-u-m-a.org

The pomegranate

2009-12-05T19:01:00.002Z

If there's one fruit that sums up istanbul, it seems to be the pomegranate. Street vendors on every corner surrounded by mounds of pomegranates and oranges selling freshly squeezed juice for 1 or 2 lr.

The pomegranate has of course featured heavily in the arts and crafts (including textile designs) of parts of south east europe and south west asia, the fruit originating from Iran, and has significance to all the main religions. Here I have to do more research.

I'm not aware of it in either english or romanian design or folklore, but please correct me if I'm wrong. I still remember, when I was about ten years old, the day my dad returned from a business trip to Turkey (he worked in the coffee trade) with a pomegranate. It was the most exotic and alien fruit we had all seen up to that point in our lives. The whole family stood around it wondering what to do with it and how to eat it!!

I wonder whether the fruit is still an icon used by contemporary turkish designers. And whether the vendors are just for tourists or frequented by locals too.

More pondering of the pomegranate to do. Wikipedia as always is a good place to start.

Cats

2009-12-04T21:32:00.000Z

Well made it out of bed, and out to get some food.
If Bucharest was the city of the dogs, then Istanbul is the city of the cats..everywhere you turn. Domestic, wild or semi-domestic? I shared my meal with three black kittens, who quickly decided that the people next to me had better food on offer than my vegetable kebab. No loyalty cats, not like dogs.

Strolled back to hotel, up onto the roof terrace. Amazing night time views of the Sea of Marmara, the cargo ships doted across the port, all pointing in the same direction awaiting their call to action. And the Blue Mosque at night shining bright like a golden beacon. The seagulls swooping around the minarets appear like flakes of gold that have broken free from the dome dancing with the pleasure of their new found freedom.

I forget the cold, my flu and am lost in the moment.

The Flu!

2009-12-04T16:44:00.000Z

Well, I think I tempted fate by saying that this travelling lark was great, as I awoke on my first morning with a banging headache and a temperature. Great I've got flu, so I have spent all day in bed. Not exactly the start to my trip I had imagined.

rest, water, rest , water, rest, water, water, rest.

futbol futbol

2009-12-03T21:45:00.005Z

Well I've arrived in Istanbul, for the next leg of the research project to meet with potential collaborators from Turkey. This is my second time in Istanbul. Last time I came for a holiday with one of my best friends - the two of us raised christian and muslim respectively exploring the city together brought different perspectives to the journey. That time was for the tourist trail of museums, mosques,bazaars, hamans, clubs, bars, restaurants, etc.

This time I'm alone and the plan is to meet artists, musicians, dj's, curators working and living in the city. To explore, to meet, to listen, to discuss and to learn with an open mind and open heart.

I arrive at the hotel and on presenting my passport, I'm immediately questioned as to which football team I support - Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham??? The two staff (who I soon find out are both Fenerbahce supporters) and I then spend the next ten minutes shouting out random footballing names at each other..Liverpool, Steven Gerrard, Alan Hansen, Bekistas, Benayoun, Galatasarey and then out of nowhere comes Nottingham Forest and to round it off Brian Clough! - priceless. That wasn't me by the way. Football is such a great leveller.

Isn't travel wonderful.

Istanbul

2009-12-01T20:35:00.002Z

"I come through the paths
path: the first ABC of my life
A: alienation, B: being together
M: meeting, Z: beyond all boundaries

I grasp an island of loneliness and come"

from ABZ by Leyla Sahin

Photos from opening of OSE

2009-10-07T02:39:00.003+01:00

As promised here's a link to Ele's photographs from the opening event of the Open Source Embroidery exhibition.

OSE at MOCFA

On a personal note it's great to see people already getting involved in the cut and paste, pixel drawings and stitching on the armchairs. Can't wait to see the results.

Well done Ele, all the participating artists and projects, and a big thank you to all the crew at MOCFA in San Francisco for putting it all together.

much love
x

Sounds of Umea and London

2009-10-04T20:45:00.006+01:00

Here's a short film of a selection of pixel drawings created by the sampler-culture clash collective in London and visitors to the OSE exhibition in Umea, Sweden back in June. We've transfered the images into Reaktor to create the sounds you hear during the film.

OSE hits San Francisco

2009-10-02T11:42:00.011+01:00

The Open Source Embroidery exhibition, curated by Ele Carpenter and featuring elements of sampler-cultureclash, opened last night at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco. Sadly I couldn't be there to show my support, but I was there in spirit.I'll post some photos, or links to photos / videos once they're available. The exhibition runs until 24 January 2010.

Alongside the work we exhibited in Umea, we've contributed a new short film of ten pixel drawings, created by visitors to the Bildmuseet in Umea, which we've put into Reaktor to create sounds.

Sampler at Shipley Lates

2009-09-24T19:44:00.002+01:00

HI everyone
Quick reminder that I will be giving a performance at Shipley Lates at Shipley Museum and Art Gallery in Gateshead tomorrow evening - Friday 25 Sept. I hope some of you good folk in the north east will be able to make it along.
Me. Nervous? Yes!

for more info visit:
http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/shipley/

xx

On the clothesline. Romanian Dowry

2009-09-17T01:33:00.006+01:00

Quick post to let you know about an exhibition taking place over the next couple of weeks at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Belgrave Square in London until 25 September.

"On the clothesline", features a selection of textile artefacts from the amazing Museum of the Romanian Peasant, a collaborator on the sampler project. It explores the twice yearly ritual of cleaning the precious dowry textiles.

To quote directly from the website:

"Romanians keep their treasures indoors. Having a treasure room, the good room, the ruda room, filled with hand-made textile, clothes, carpets, items that are always displayed yet never used, is a must for any well-off Romanian peasant. This is the dowry of the woman and preserving it is a matter of pride and hard-work. Twice a year these treasures are taken outdoors to be cleaned and freshened up. They are washed at the river or at the water whirlpool, they are hung on the clothesline, ironed, treated for moths and arranged again on display in the good room. All these procedures can last as long as a week; as they say, it takes hard work to have a good room.
The good room, the ruda room in Northern Romania, is in itself an exhibition. An exhibition of the best and most beautiful items the family possesses. The exhibiting technique, if one can speak of it, is crowding. All the more crowded the good room is, all the more beautiful it is considered: carpets, pillows, tablecloths, linen, towels, icons, decorated plates, the more, the better!

This exhibition borrows from the village a form of display that the peasant does not consider as such. Hanging the precious family dowry on the clothesline is not a form of exhibiting it; it is only a necessary annual ritual. Still, the foreigner, the ethnographer, is fascinated by the display of textile on the clothesline. There (s)he can see and feel the fine details, the thread, the coloured models, the hand-made linen. It is only once a year that the treasures of the good room can be thus observed. For the rest of the year, they are hidden, one on top of the other, in the crowded museum that is the good room.

This is your chance to admire them from a close distance. Don't be afraid to touch them if you feel the need to, but bear in mind their beauty is also their fragility and old age. "
(Romanian Peasant Museum)

I hope to make it along in the next few days, and will let you know what I think, and if you're in London please go along to support the project and let me know what you think too. x

Pixel Piano Players

2009-09-13T20:54:00.013+01:00

Well, I finally received the four music boxes I ordered, so we can use them in future workshops and performances. Today I got around to trying them out.
I took one the pixel drawing samples from one of the collaborative drawings we created. This sample was chosen by Gill, one of the embroiderers working on the project.

I then cut the sample into three strips and joined them together and made a hole in each of the black drawn squares with a hole-punch. Here's a short film of the result as the piece is played through the music box. The music box is in the key of C and plays both the bass and the treble clef. I like the parts where the pattern is stepped and plays single notes either rising up or down the scale and then suddenly plays a whole chord as the pattern changes.

Cut 'n' paste Umea

2009-09-03T15:48:00.018+01:00

As part of the Open Source Embroidery exhibition, we invited visitors to create their own versions of two samplers from the Vasterbottens Museum's collection.
The two samplers are Sommad ar, 1820 and Miriam 1964. We're trying to find out more about their origins.

We put out colour copies of the two samplers and visitors used cut 'n' paste techniques with scissors and glue (very high tech!) sampling sections of the originals to create their own pieces.

Here are some of the beautiful results. It's amazing to see how images can be transformed using such simple techniques combined with the person's creativity and imagination. I'd love to hear from any of the creators and find out what they were thinking whilst they made them.

Thinking Turkey

2009-08-26T18:02:00.020+01:00

Well I'm up in Edinburgh at the moment, surrounded by the full cacophony of the festival, to meet with British Council staff and potential collaborators from Turkey in preparation for my visit there in October.

I was doing further research on the web about turkish embroidery on the train journey here, and came across the great short article written by Beth Gardner. She talks about the hidden messages in embroidered pieces made by Turkish women.

"Young women used embroidery to speak of things that they did not dare to put into words. They used colors and motifs in their scarves, waistbands, coverlets and carpets to express feelings of love, yearning and desire. A yellow scarf sent to a maiden’s beloved meant she was in love and missed him. If she embroidered her scarf with cypresses, she was thinking of death from longing. "

Read the full article here on the Embroiderers' Guild of America's website.

Lots of good things happening with sampler at the moment:

The project is featured in the British Council's latest Art, Architecture and Design newsletter.

We've just received some great photos of the pixel drawings and cut 'n' paste activities made by visitors at the Open Source Embroidery exhibition in Umea, which I'll post when I get back. And, we're planning for next stage of the exhibition when it tours to the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco in October.

And, if you're in the north east of england, on 25 Sept 6pm-10pm, I'll be performing solo!!! and talking about sampler-cultureclash at the Stitched Up event at The Shipley Art Gallery in Gateshead, as part of Shipley Lates.

The collaboration with the V&A is moving on nicely. The plan is to feature the sampler project on the V&A's website as part of a new section about its collection of embroidered samplers.

So watch this space for future updates on all of these.

Noise Workshop 2

2009-08-13T18:51:00.013+01:00

Here is an unedited audio piece of all the sounds made from the noise objects we created throughout the day using embroidery "stuff". The sounds at the start are made by feeding samples of the black and white pixel drawings and just open weave fabric through a music box / piano player machine. The sound is quiet so best appreciated with headphones.

Basement Series 1

2009-08-04T14:35:00.007+01:00

If you are in London town tomorrow night Wed 5 August I highly recommend the following evening of noise, static and sound performances and sculptures.
Berit Greinke will be performing at the first of a new Basement Series organised by Ryan Jordan. I hope to join her on stage to hold things.
7pm start at the Foundry, Great Eastern Street. nearest tube Old Street.
Full line up includes

Rob Munro http://robmunro.net/
Cheapmachines http://cmx.org.uk/
John Wall http://utterpsalm.com
Loel Cahen http://newtoy.org
Chris Weaver http://chrisweaver.wordpress.com
JOhn Macedo www.myspace.comqueenofswordssound/
Sam May http://www.loveloverecords.co.uk/
Dan Tombs http://www.dantombs.net

Hope to see you there

Noise tool workshop

2009-07-19T14:51:00.012+01:00

Firstly a huge thank you to Berit and Andere for an inspiring and fun workshop. I'm just in the process of editing the video recording we made. We also took a whole load of sound recordings of each noise tool we created. So watch out for those in future postings.

In the meantime here's a short video clip of one of the sampled pixel drawings played through a player piano machine. We took a sample from one of the samples, from one of the collective black on white grid pixel drawings we created back in December 08, and used a whole punch on each of the black squares to create a hole and then fed it through the player. Not an original idea by any means, but we thought it would be interesting to see what the resulting sound would be. And I like the fact that it comes from a random sample of a random sample taken from an improvised drawing created collectively by 8 people.

Apologies for the quality of the recording, and the background noise. We'll get some good quality recordings done, but it gives you an idea of the sound coming directly from a black and white drawing as the machine plays it.

It's going to be interesting to see how we weave these in to our performances and in future recorded compositions.

OSE - More photos no 2

2009-07-12T22:20:00.004+01:00

OSE - more photos no 1

2009-07-12T22:07:00.004+01:00

few more photos from the Open Source Embroidery launch event and our trip.

Noise Tool Workshop

2009-07-11T19:11:00.013+01:00

Quick post on a few fronts.

I'm looking forward to Monday as Berit Greinke and Andere Monjo, both of whom have recently graduated from the MA Textile Futures course at Central St.Martins, are running their Noise Tool Workshop with the sampler-cultureclash embroiderers. I can't wait to see what they come up with at the end of the day.

You can see Berit's wonderful textile sound machine at this link SHhH

And on another front, check out Earth, Wind and Pyre, presented by Candi Staton which discusses the event "Disco Sucks" led by Chicago rock dj Steve Dahl where there was mass burning of disco records in the White Sox's baseball stadium. It's been likened to a Nazi book burning event for its anti gay and anti black and anti-urban stance.
BBC Radio 2, Sat 11 July 10pm.

More photos

2009-06-17T20:19:00.007+01:00

Hi, ele has posted photos from the opening on this link OSE

and there's a review of the project at wired.com

x

Photos from Open Source Embroidery

2009-06-16T23:22:00.011+01:00

As promised here's the first batch of photos from our trip and the opening event of Open Source Embroidery at the Bildmuseet in Umea.

Umea

2009-06-15T21:40:00.010+01:00

Just back from Umea. We had a fantastic time. A huge thank you to Ele, Katerina and everyone at the Bildmuseet for their hospitality and generosity, and a particular thank you to Jason and Yusra for surviving the epic journey to get there and for making the trip so special.

Loads of photos to go through and post, so I'll do that over the next couple of days. In the meantime here's a link to a snippet of some of our performance at the opening event. Thanks to Stephanie Hendrick from Humlab for shooting and posting this.
Opening Performance

Big love to everyone I met over the weekend and all the artists involved in open source embroidery. It's a very special exhibition that explores a significant moment in current creative practice.

Sweden here we come

2009-06-04T23:22:00.009+01:00

Well we're off to Umea, in the north east of Sweden tomorrow to perform at the opening of the Open Source Embroidery exhibition on Saturday. The exhibition is curated by Ele Carpenter and is on at the Bildmuseet.

It's going to be a mamouth adventure to get there..plane, train, bus, but we're all very excited about the journey, performing, showcasing a selection of the work we've created to date, meeting people including some of the other exhibitors and experiencing the other work in the show.

I'll keep you posted about how it all goes.

x

Day 5 - Searchin' for vinyl

2009-06-03T23:30:00.018+01:00

Everytime i visit a new city I always try to track down any record shops, which still sell vinyl (new and second hand) which of course is getting harder in these days of the digital download. Sadly I searched and searched and couldn't seem to find any. There were a couple of cd shops, but no vinyl. Several people I've spoken to said they weren't any vinyl specialist shops, but flea markets were the best places for second hand vinyl. Sadly I'm not here long enough to visit the weekend markets..next time.

As in most countries under communist rule, there was a state owned or "directed" record label. Like Melodiya records Melodiya in the former USSR, Romania had Electrecord

Apparently the quality of the recordings is not great, but I'm interested in tracking some down and finding out more about what got recorded and by whom. And which artists, if any, from outside of Romania or other communist countries were published.

With friends in Lithuania we've been digging out their, and their families, old record collections and discussing their favourite records from the Melodiya label and why they liked that particular album so much. Also the significance of underground parties where friends would gather to listen to illegal imported records, particularly jazz, blues and rock.

Having had the freedom to listen to whatever type of music I've wanted to without fear of arrest from the powers that be, it's incredibly hard to imagine a situation where you don't have that freedom and what that form of control and oppression must have been like in reality.

Both Electrecords, and indeed Melodiya, are still functioning labels, although I'm not sure what their significance is anymore in contemporary russia and romania. Who still listens to their new output?

On a more contemporary note though check out Hades records, Romania's leading label for hip hop.

Day 4 - The Museum of the Romanian Peasant

2009-05-20T22:01:00.037+01:00

One of the main reasons for my trip was to visit the Muzeul Taranului Roman - the Museum of the Romanian Peasant and to meet Dr Vintila Mihailescu the Museum's Director. The Museum was created by artist Horia Bernea to celebrate the different Romanian rural civilisations.

The term peasant is so often used as a term of abuse and put down in England, even when joking with friends. "You peasant" - backward, uneducated, no social graces, no money and not modern. So it's interesting to visit a place where the rural village working population appears to be viewed in a very different light.

I had a fantastic meeting with Dr Mihailescu, who is also an eminent anthropologist. He was incredibly positive about the project and helping to make it happen. So, it's on!!! We "just" have to make it happen now.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the Museum looking at its collections. Such a wonderfully inspiring place, with a rich collection of textiles, costumes, painted eggs, religious icons, buildings (a church, watermill and a house), workshops, crosses, pottery, tiles and chairs.

It's a museum and not a romanian village but even so I could spend days and weeks here studying the collection. I'm hoping to see some of the collection in storage on my next visit and spend some time with one of the museum's curators. Sadly, it wasn't possible this time, but everything one step at a time. The amount of textiles is in fact somewhat overwhelming, so I need to give more time to thinking which aspects I would like to research further.

I kept thinking how much Romanian villages, even the most remote must have changed drastically, particularly since the collectivisation and industrialisation of communism between 1940's and 1989. Again more to explore in another visit.

I took endless photographs, sat and drew objects and patterns. There was limited information in English, although I picked up a book about the museum in the shop. I've really got to start learning Romanian.

Here's one favourite piece explaining the stitching on a blouse, from the first room in the museum which focuses on the significance of the cross. Not a great photo sorry.

"There is a deep resemblance between the tree of life - a symbol common to many European and Asian cultures - and the cross. Both are bridges linking the sky and the earth."

"The crosses are sewn on the front of this blouse, at breast level. Such blouses seem to have been worn by breast-feeding women. The beliefs and practices related to the newly born placed great stock on ensuring of milk and rest. It was believed that evil people and foul spirits sought to steal the baby's milk and sleep, that is why the mothers needed to know how to protect themselves."

You really must visit this museum.

Day 3 - Who let the dogs out?

2009-05-19T21:34:00.018+01:00

The image is another stencil graffiti I spotted on the walk home last night. Copied or inspired by the grid patterns on recent Pepsi cans, but I also liked its connection to embroidery charts and in terms of sampler to the pattern drawings we did in one of our workshops. See previous post Patterns from Dec 08.

Sleepless night. The local dogs spent all night barking - at what? I didn't find out. Maybe at each other? You know that theory where one dog barks and suddenly there's a chain reaction until all the dogs around the world have had a go.

There are three main sounds of bucharest so far.
1) traffic
2) car horns
3) dogs barking

Had a brief introductory meeting with Gabriela Vasilescu from the British Council. It's always good to finally meet people after all that time e-mailing. Gabriela was very supportive. It's interesting seeing how different people respond to the project and how they start to make connections and offer different suggestions.

Spent the rest of the afternoon drinking coffee and reading some of the book Romania by Lucian Boia - a personal interpretation of the history of Romania, which includes a tour of Bucharest. The book was first published in 2001, so some of it is already dated. But it's an educational and thought provoking read so far.

Sampler-cultureclash is essentially about people, the past, the moment, traditions, place, customs, language, connections, the contemporary, and the yet to be created. Considering these whilst being in another country and city, about which I know very little...well my head is spinning.

I thought this was an interesting point to reflect upon and to examine further from the first chapter in the book where he's discussing the many theories about the origins of the Romanian race and how they have been used and adapted for political reasons - whether for regionalism, nationalism, communism or europeanism.

" A people does not remain fixed over time. It is a fluid synthesis and in any case a cultural, not a biological one. Ancestral inheritance is continually dilluted, and contemporary connections are more important than origins. Ancestors end up counting less for themselves and more for the ways in which we use them to mark our identity. It is certain that the Romanians of today resemble the British (different as they are) more than they do the Dacians and the Romans. In fact they do not resemble the latter at all: they lived 2,000 years ago, and had quite a different mentality and way of life then we do. Marc Bloch's remark quoting an Arab proverb is very apt: "People resemble their times more than they resemble their fathers.""

Day 2 - Sunday in the City

2009-05-18T21:26:00.039+01:00

Slept in. Missed breakfast. 30 degrees plus. Red nose. Bought sun cream. No meetings today so I decided to visit the Village Museum - an open air museum with an impressive and important collection of houses brought from across the regions of romania, which also includes an important collection of interior textiles and costumes. More on that in a moment.

A leisurely stroll through Kisselef park, past the huge and grand foreign embassies and the Triumphal Arch, based on Paris' namesake and onto Herastrau Park. Sunday in the city, like all great cities i've visited - families, children playing, sitting in the dappled shade, talking, meeting friends, drinking, parading, skateboarders, romantic couples, rollerblades, bikes, boating on the lake and basking in the sun. It seems like half of Bucharest is here today, which isn't surprising given the combination of the weather and the fact that bucharest, as a result of Ceaucescu's brutal regime and grandiose and bizarre ideas about architecture, now appears to be a city of flat dwellers with little private outside space. I love city parks - crucial common open spaces for people to breathe, relax, exercise and to meet and escape the stresses of urban life.

Onto the Village Museum. It was packed with families, but at the same time there was a really relaxed atmosphere. As someone who lives in a wooden house I love open air museums full of other wooden houses!! I always marvel at the simplicity yet sophistication of many of these structures, and although I am always drawn towards decoration, i love the aesthetics of function in wooden rural houses. True, they have been removed from their original context which always leads you to a romantic view of rural life - which of course it wasn't / isn't. I wonder whether by some twist of fate (or our own doing) that future generations will be forced to return to a simple life - one with no electricity, no instant heating or hot water, no flat screen tv's the size of rooms, no computers nor mobile phones?

I couldn't take any photos inside any of the houses. So instead, I sat and made drawings of many of the patterns in the embroideries. Most of the houses were simply decorated, white walls, some painted, and covered in textiles - lace curtains, woven blankets, embroidered pieces hung over treasured possessions, such as religious icons and plates) or hanging from ceilings. Many had a looms inside. I loved this piece on one of the information signs.
"On long winter evenings the village girls organised sittings in the work room, when spinning of wool and hemp were alternating with songs and tales, ending in dances with lads who would arrive towards the end of the spinning session." Music, textiles, word, song and dance together. I wonder whether those types of gatherings still go on in parts of Romania. I'd love to learn more about the types of songs and tales that were (are) told and whether these informed the weaving or vica versa?

Perhaps we are creating contemporary and urban versions of such social gatherings through the sampler project?

Day 1 - meeting Carla

2009-05-17T19:40:00.020+01:00

Another sunny and hot day. Walked from hotel to Piata Unirii to catch a tram to meet designer Carla Szabo. Here's some stencil graffiti I spotted on my way.

Walked around the massive square, flanked on one side by an enormous shopping complex. Eventually found the 32 tram. Missed stop and ended up at almost the opposite end of the road. Carla very very kindly offered to collect me, otherwise I may have been walking up and down the road forever. Little sense of direction!

Carla, is a designer currently making her own jewellery pieces, but has a background in graphic, interior and advertising design. She was selected in 2007 for the British Council's International Design Entrepreneur which is how I got to hear about her, and she is also looking to develop international collaborations.

Carla and her partner Alec gave me an amazing welcome, with a great lunch of bean soup, bread, hummus and cheese. I found them both incredibly warm, friendly,interesting, funny, open and generous people. They made me feel instantly relaxed and at home. It was a perfect start to my first meeting of the trip. It meant a huge amount that Carla had been so generous to spare the time to meet with me. We sat and chatted about each other's work and the sampler project. It was really interesting listening to Carla talk about her aspirations and some of the difficulties she faced trying to make it as a designer in Romania. I really loved Carla's work, interesting concepts and use of materials, and particularly her sense of humour and irony. I had such a great time chatting that I forgot to take any photos. I'll do a proper post on Carla's work but here's a link to her website in the meantime.
http://www.carlaszabo.com/

Carla has a fantastic studio space and shop within an amazing building, near a flower market, which has recently been renovated as a cultural and creative centre. There was a photography competition taking place and a drum workshop for street kids downstairs, and an international food market, so the place was buzzing with activity.There was a really positive energy about the place. As I sat there and walked around, I kept thinking what a great space it could be for the sampler workshop and event.

Carla very kindly arranged for me to meet with musician, producer and dj Christian Stefanescu aka electric brother

Again we had a great chat about the sampler project and musicians and artists who have made links between contemporary and traditional romanian music such as the Shukar Collective and the electronic sound and visual festival Rokolectiv

The main reason behind my trip is to meet people, listen, learn and reflect and to explore what the connection is between music and textiles in Romania, and to see whether people are interested in collaborating and if so in what way. In a way that makes sense to them. What is it that they are interested in exploring and developing, are there commonalities, or are there shared problems and can we explore these further through collaborating.

I had a great day and left reflecting and feeling inspired. Thank you Carla, Alec and Christian for such a warm welcome.

Bucuresti

2009-05-16T19:25:00.008+01:00

Arriving in bucharest exhausted after 12 hours of travelling but glad to finally be here. Events and thoughts on my arrival and sites that flashed by on my journey into town.

arrive Henri Coanda International Airport, baggage carousel broken, fixed, rush for bags, chaos, pounced upon by eager taxi drivers, 783 bus into centre, baking heat, blue skies, telephone and electricity cables, flat landscape, red tiled roofs, old man with a bunch of flowers waiting for bus, nike outlet store, adidas outlet store, volvo, renault, dacia, ferari,empty iron advertising structures like the angel of the north, woods, industry, orchard, red poppies, ikea, shopping city, cars, more cars, traffic grinds to a halt, queues, slow, temperature rising, dehydrated, yellow, red, blue, church, the woman sat opposite makes the sign of the cross, park, families walking, high rise blocks, young women selling flowers by the side of the road, first obvious signs of poverty, faded grandeur, destruction, re-construction, construction, stray dog in the road, arrive Piata Victoriei, disembark, confused, disorientated, friendly women helps with directions to hotel, busy, end of day workers, dragging suitcase, pack of dogs, lost, no street sign, kids on bikes, beautiful but wrecked buildings, arrive, friendly greeting, bed, crash.

Romania

2009-05-15T01:00:00.007+01:00

Well I'm off to romania in about 3 hours for a week long research trip for the sampler project. I should be asleep! I don't know about you but I can never sleep when I need to wake up to catch a flight in the very early hours in the morning. hence writing this post at 1am. I'll probably fall asleep at 2.30am just when I need to wake up! Early cheap flights. hmmm.

Anyway I'm rambling now, but during my visit I'll try to post stuff about the people I meet, places I visit and the interesting and challenging things I come across in the worlds of romanian embroidery, music, culture, politics and ..well life.

Here's a great link about traditional romanian dance, music and costume to get things going. Eliznik

Sampling Sheffield

2009-05-10T23:56:00.005+01:00

A belated and huge thank you to the Embroiderers' Guild for inviting us to Sheffield to speak at their annual conference. Presentating to a packed auditorium of over 100 passionate embroiderers, was nerve-racking but I have to say it was very well received and there was interesting discussion during and afterwards, about collaboration, the blues and british trad jazz, slow verses fast, hand and digital - which is the one thing I was most hoping for. It was a fun, enlightening, moving and inspiring day. Yusra, Jason, Jackie and I all loved it.

As part of the day we held a workshop exploring the connection between stitched samplers and sound - the aim being to create a sound piece using text, voice, pattern and sampling inspired by embroidered samplers. Here is the resulting sound piece created live as we went along. All the sounds you hear - the voices, baselines, drum beats etc are created from either a drawn pattern entered into Reaktor, or from the voices of the embroiderers - poems, noises and words - then sampled, looped, distorted, reversed etc in Ableton Live.

A collective and improvised piece: 90 minutes, 30 embroiderers, pens, paper, imagination, reflection, humour and open minds. Let us know what you think.

And of course a huge thank you to all the participants - Claire, Nicola, Antonia, Jenny, Jacqueline, Kate, Annette, Barbara, Marie, Eveleen, Fiona, Margaret, Heather, Liz, Jo, Maureen, Muriel, Dora and Sarah. Apologies to all of those whose name I haven't got..please let me know. Your CDs are in the post!

sampling sheffield

2009-04-14T14:16:00.006+01:00

Quick post to say that Sampler-cultureclash has been featured in the Sheffield Telegraph in an article about the Embroiderers' Guild's annual conference this coming weekend. Here's the link to the article if you're interested.

http://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/arts/Crossover-stitches.5160461.jp

We've now got 30 people booked onto the workshop we're giving..hmm no pressure then.
Off to think about the presentation and performance we're giving on the saturday.

As i said it would be lovely to see a few of you there. I hope people can make it along on.

threedotline

2009-03-25T23:55:00.025Z

Just back from manchester after a couple of wonderful days creating a new sound piece with Jason and catching up with Yusra, reflecting on sampler so far and planning for the embroiderers' guild gig in Sheffield in April.

Jason and i used one of the black and white pattern pieces created collectively by the embroiderers - the piece used in our previous workshop with Berit.

We took twelve 10cmx10cm random samples from the piece,effectively using it as our score from which to start sampling. Using Reaktor we let the software translate these into sounds. It's amazing what it comes up with depending on the pattern you input. I like the fact that the sounds it generates are unexpected and appear random. Although the programme has its limitations I find it quite a liberating way of composing - going with what you get rather than trying to force the programme to do something for you.

Here's a couple of video clips of sound to give you an idea of what's going on. The full piece will get its premier as part of the Open Source Embroidery exhibition curated by Ele Carpenter in Sweden in June.

For more info on the Embroiderers' Guild's annual conference click on the link in my collaborators section. We'll be giving a presentation on some of our work to date and a workshop on Saturday 18th. We're honored, excited and very nervous, but whatever happens it'll be interesting to hear people's reactions and thoughts about the project - maybe we'll meet a few of you there.

berit, textiles and sound

2009-03-18T15:24:00.046Z

Last week we got together for one of our creative workshop sessions. Berit Greinke, who is currently studying on the MA Textile Futures course at Central St. Martins very kindly came along to talk to us about her work and take part in the workshop. Berit is also exploring the connection between materials and sound. Currently, she's working on a project entitled SHhH developing electronic machines that "read the cloth" - surface, pattern, colour and structure. Over the years she's been working with drawn and printed graphite, woven magnetic tape from cassettes, light sensors and stitched, printed and dyed fabrics. You can find out more about Berit's work, including a great little video of some of her pattern to sound tests at

If you're interested in contacting Berit you can e-mail her: beritgreinke@yahoo.de

During the workshop we tried one of Berit's inventions on the drawn pattern pieces we created at the last workshop in December (see december archive). Here's a couple of short video clips of the sounds created by scanning the patterns and one of Kathy playing her printed scarf, which is great. The clip with the front of a speaker is Pat playing the pattern, adding an element of human emotion and movement rather than just scanning it. The results starts to sound like bird song. We hope to continue to work with Berit and plan to take the full pattern pieces into the recording studio next month to add into our pot of sounds.

"

In the afternoon, we each chose a sample from the four collaborative pattern pieces to translate into embroideries. The idea is for everyone to work on an individual sampled section and then bring them back together into one collaborative piece to create a new stitched sampler. I'm meeting Jason later this week to work on turning these sampled pattern pieces into sound to create one new composition.

It was great day, and we left feeling inspired by the activities and discussing "where we go next?

V&A Day 1 - Part 3

2009-02-17T16:37:00.012Z

Moving on from spot samplers to band samplers, tracing the evolution of sampler making. Here's Clare talking about two 17th Century band samplers in the V&A's collection. Band samplers we created using a loom-width of linen for the length with the selvedges making up the top and bottom of the piece. The width was much narrower, which allowed the embroiderer to trial repeating bands of pattern, text and other techniques such as cut-work. These samplers started to introduce an element of design, whereas with spot samplers I think of them as collages, stitched areas randomly placed on the fabric, with the embroiderer utilising every last piece of the cloth.

For me, band samplers are like musical scores. Indeed, when Jason first saw them he commented that the rows of patterns were like the visual representations of sound recordings you find in digital music software - rows of hi-hats, snare drums, basslines and vocals, when combined making up the complete composition.

The first of the two samplers is unnamed, and the second was created by Hannah Pittman. Both are fine examples of band samplers of that period and are not only fascinating in terms of the techniques used to create them, combining stitched bands of coloured threads, white-work, repeating patterns, text and cut-work, but also for the mystery of their makers' fates. Both pieces are unfinished, one with a piece of thread left hanging and Hannah Pittman's stitched text stops mid flow.

" the lamentation of a sinner
O lord turn not away thy face from him
that lies prostret lementing sor his sinfyl life
be for th...."

Did they get bored, or as Clare aludes to, did they die?

Elizabeth Longhurst - Sampler

2009-02-12T12:35:00.010Z

Well I opened the post a few days ago and was delighted to have received this beautifully embroidered and designed "sampler" from Elizabeth Longhurst who is one of the members of the New Embroidery Group. I particularly like the mirrored DJ faces linking into the idea of repetition. At first they aren't instantly recognisable, but the closer you study the piece their forms start to appear. Also, Liz's choice of stitches and colour on the open weave linen. I'll have to get Liz to tell me/you which stitches she's used, as my knowledge still isn't that great.

At the start of the project I invited the embroiderers to design and embroider a logo symbolising the connection between the two worlds of dj-ing and embroidery cultures. Sadly, due to work commitments Liz hasn't been able to take part in any of the workshops so far, so it means a huge amount to me that she has been working away on this piece in her spare time. I continue to be amazed at the kindness and generosity of everyone involved in the project.

I'm looking forward to exhibiting Liz's sampled contribution as the project develops.

You can see more of Liz's work on the New Embroidery Group link in the collaborators section of my blog.

birthday books

2009-02-09T10:50:00.013Z

Well it was my birthday last week and I received two fantastic books as presents.

The first was Old Rare New - The Independent Record Shop published by black dog publishing, ISBN: 978 1 906155 32 2
which features a whole host of interviews and articles by the likes of Bob Stanley, James Lavelle, Devendra Banhart and Gerald Jazzman about diggin' and the culture of the, sadly disappearing, independent record shop. My favourite independent of all time is still King Bee records in Chorlton, Manchester. I've picked up some fantastic tunes there and not for silly money.

The second was from my partner Gill, "Quaker School Samplers from Ackworth" by Carol Humphrey, published by Needleprint. ISBN: 0-9552086-1-0
I must try to meet up with Carol one day, as she is a font of knowledge about all things samplers. I've seen and read about a couple of the Ackworth school samplers, so it'll be great to study them some more, and see whether thy might link into the sampler project.

A huge thank you to Gill, and both Faye and Sian at LPT for the very generous presents - perfect :) I'll post any gems that I pick out of the books.

Home is...

2009-01-02T16:49:00.004Z

Happy New Year. Hope everyone has had much festive festiveness of the festive variety over the festive period. I have to say despite the loom and gloom of the recession, I'm looking forward to 2009. There's much to explore with the sampler project - the Open Source Embroidery touring exhibition, talking at the Embroiderers' Guild's annual conference in April, developing further research with the V&A and hopefully developing the project with sampler collections across the UK and internationally working with the British Council in south east europe.

I hope you all have successful 2009's too!

P.S> A huge thanks to Gill for the badge above..perfect xxxx

V&A Day 1 - Part 2

2008-12-15T18:28:00.007Z

Here's another clip from the first day of the workshop we ran back in May. Clare shows us two early samplers from the 16th century, now part of the V&A's collection. Well I don't need to explain much about them otherwise there's not much point showing the clip. Enjoy.

Patterns

2008-12-07T21:27:00.022Z

Last week I met up with the wonderful embroiderers for our regular catch up and for another day of creative play. This time exploring pattern making using grid paper and black marker pens. We built on the idea we used for the sampler-culture clash event in Sept, where we invited members of the audience to create patterns which we would use to turn into sound. We've started to do that by the way, so I'll post some of the results soon.

Continuing with our philospophy of collaborative creation, we worked in pairs on four 2 metre sized grid papers, spending twenty minutes on each, then moving round to the next one so that everyone had worked on each design twice. We didn't use any reference material, just what ever happened to be in our heads at that particular moment.

We came up wth some quite amazing and varied designs given the timescale and the process. The idea is to use these as our musical scores and translate them into sound compositions, so we have a complete piece and then sample sections and re-work the pieces. I've no idea what they're going to sound like. We'll also be using the patterns to create embroidery pieces, again both whole designs and sampled sections woven together to create new compositions.

Here's a selection of photos from the day and a couple of the final pieces.

DATS

2008-11-27T21:54:00.015Z

I've just got back from Birmingham, after very kindly being invited to talk about Sampler-Culture Clash at the Dress and Textile Specialist's annual conference. It was a nerve racking gig talking about the project in front of such expertise, but it seemed to go down well and the participants were very supportive.

I really enjoyed the day, having the opportunity to meet curators from museums across the UK and Ireland and to talk to them about samplers in their collections. I particularly enjoyed the talk by Linda Fairlie and Bruce Morgan from East Ayshire Council about their collections, including the ayrshire wool blankets, with their distinctive stripes. I have a few which I still use, courtesy of my mother (who was born in Glasgow, with her extended family all living in Ayshire and mostly working as miners). I got home and checked the label of one - The "C.B.4" Loudoun Cheviot Bath Blanket, which is great and says "Made under the shadow of Loudoun's Bonnie Woods and Braes".

Also, the story of the UK's last Jacquard loom punch card machine - tragically no longer in service. It would be so fantastic to get that up and running again, and to work with the operators to create new punch cards based on some of the (binary) patterns we've been creating recently. Apparently, the man who last operated the machine is also a pianist - it would be great to meet him. Wherever you go the connection between textiles and music raises its head.

I'm looking forward to following up by visiting several of the museums to find out more about their sampler collections. One idea with Sampler is to tour the project across the UK, producing new work specific to each location, so today was perfect to start to make those connections.

Thanks to everyone at DATS for inviting me, and in particular Zelina Garland (DAT's Chair and Curatorial Services Manager at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery) for all her help.

Well coming back

2008-11-20T16:13:00.022Z

"Well coming back. 1990..chubb rock jumps upon the scene" - one of my favourite hip hop tunes Treat 'Em Right by Chubb Rock

I've finally had a some time to go through the videos of the first workshop we ran way back in May. I thought I'd share some of the events and discussions that took place during that week, so you can get a better idea of what we've been up to.

This was the first time that all the collaborators had met and, as such, was the very start of the process to explore whether we could bring the worlds of embroidery, music/dj-ing and spoken word together, using the common word "sampler" as the starting point.

Day 1: 19 May 2008.

Clare Browne very kindly hosted the first day at the V&A Museum - deep in one of the textile archive store rooms. The idea for the first day was to enable the collaborators to meet each other, introduce themselves and their work, and then to learn more about some of the samplers in both the V&A's and The Embroiderers' Guild's collections - the techniques, the meaning of motifs, the evolution of sampler making and the social context in which they were produced. These samplers would be used as the initial inspiration for the rest of the week's activities.

So to kick thigs off here's the first clip from day 1, with Clare reading from A Schole House for the Needle..more to follow.

A Schole House for the Needle

Here's the full text

A Scole-House for the Needle by Richard Shorleyker was first published in 1632 as a pattern book from which the embroiderer could work. You can purchase it from the Embroiderers' Guild's on-line bookshop.

Thursday Club

2008-10-30T17:26:00.024Z

Quick post to let you know that Jason Singh and I will be talking about Sampler - Culture Clash and giving a short improvised performance next thursday 6 November from 6-8pm as part of the Thursday Club taking place at the Ben Pimlott Building, Goldsmiths College in New Cross, London.

"The Thursday Club is an open forum discussion group for anyone interested in the theories and practices of cross-disciplinarity, interactivity, technologies and philosophies of the state-of-the-art in today’s (and tomorrow’s) cultural landscape(s). The Club is supported by the Goldsmiths Digital Studios (GDS) and the Goldsmiths Graduate School.

Originally set up in October 2005 by GDS as a more informal setting for research discussions, it has grown to include over 150 members, artists,technologists, scientists, in fact, a growing diversity of people from different communities worldwide, that are now connected via a mailing list and online forum.

There are also regular meetings in ‘real' space at the Ben Pimlott site of Goldsmiths, University of London. Anyone can attend these events. By keeping these meetings free, informal and open to all, we provide a platform for diverse and open ended discourse, for people who perhaps would not have the opportunity to discuss ideas outside of their chosen discipline.

The Thursday Club brings together people from diverse fields and degrees of expertise, aiming to initiate discussion and debates among postgraduate students, researchers, academics, artists, theorists, and other cultural practitioners.

Since it focuses on interdisciplinary practices, the Club is interested to experiment with innovative formats of presentation that are appropriate to the nature of the subject. We particularly welcome the proposal of round table discussions, panels, screenings, 'hearings', live gigs and performance lectures as well as more traditional
presentations. We are also interested to platform experimental work-in-progress, of both practical and theoretical nature."

There's a really impressive and diverse range of UK and international speakers for the Autumn schedule, including Murray McKeith, John Levack Drever and Lawrence Upton, Harold Cohen, Tim Hopkins, Alexandre Antonopoulou and Dawn Scarfe, John Lechte and Liiane Lijn. So we're really honoured to be asked to participate and looking forward to the discussions. One aim of taking part is to get critical feedback from other people working interdisciplinary and crossdisciplinary and to develop ideas for potential collaborations with software programmers to move the research forward.

Be great if you could make it along and if you're at all interested in interdisciplinary practice I'd strongly recommend getting involved in the Thursday Club.

For more details contact:
Maria Chatzichristodoulou aka (Maria x) on drp01mc@gold.ac.uk

Diggin in Hamburg

2008-10-27T20:42:00.033Z

The other week, my colleague Linda Florence and I were invited to run a workshop in the art school in Hamburg - which was fantastic by the way - thanks to renata for inviting us.

Whilst I was there I managed to squeeze in a bit of shopping. Thanks to all the students for recommending places to go. Hamburg has a fantastic selection of second hand shops, and to my delight second hand record shops - perfect for a bit of diggin'. The two I managed to visit were Back Records and Groove City. Groove City is a haven for the world of breaks and hip hop, with old skool ghetto blasters on the wall, trainer shop in the back.

Here's some of the gems I managed to pick up and spot on my travels.

Crate Diggin T.shirt

Behind the Beats

A fantastic book celebrating hip hop home studios, from dj's and producers including DJ Premier, Dj Shadow, J Dilla, Dj Spinna, packed with great photos. My favourite shots feature the studio of Farma G's "the Junkyard".

Behind the Beats is by Raph, published by Gingko Press
ISBN: 1-58423-197-1

A couple of 1 euro records picked up for breaks and samples

and last a great compilation The In-Kraut (terrible title) but it features some great tracks and breaks such as Why Don't you play the Organ- Memphis Black; Berlin - Heidi Bruhl and my favourite Undergroovin' - Eugen Thomass.

I'll definitely be back.

B.YOUNG B.SUPREME

2008-10-19T20:33:00.031+01:00

As I've mentioned before women are the beating heart and soul of the sampler-cultureclash project. There has been a long tradition of embroidery as part of a young woman's education, social upbringing and cultural activity. Through the sampler project research we've been studying amazing embroidered samplers created by girls as young as 8 years old, such as this one from the V&A's collection by Mary Wakeling aged 10 yrs in 1742.

As part of the project we've been exploring the connection between embroidery made by young women in the 17th,18th and 19th centuries and the cultural, educational and social activities of young women (particularly urban young women)at the start of the 21st century. As part of that interest we've been looking at young women dj's, b-girls, spoken words artists and beatboxers and starting to find ways to involve them in the project and make those connections. Here's an awesome clip of 8 yr old (yes only 8 yrs old!) japanese turntablist sarascratch, she's tough!DJ Sara

Last evening I attended the b.young b.supreme event at the South Bank Centre in London, organised by Independance. Bsupreme aims to champion and support the development of women in hip-hop, and B.YOUNG is an initiative to give young women the opportunity to develop their dance skills, through a training and mentoring programme working with Nike artists D-Clash

The b-girls Hattie, Azara and Joanne who helped us out at the sampler-cultureclash event the other week in Brixton were taking part in the Dare2dance competition, as part of the dance group Stylinquents, mentored over the summer by Suzette Brissett. It was great to go along and give them my support. And..it was a close call but fantastic news..they won. I'm sure they're going to go on to bigger and better things as they develop as artists. Just being involved must have been a rewarding experience for all the dancers. It was a fantastic event, which needs more support in order that it can continue and develop. The highlight for me, alongside H,A and J taking part and winning was the octagon battle later in the evening.

here's a link to the b-supreme website for more info on the programme.B.SUPREME
and here's a clip of a couple of the UK dancers taking part the other night.http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7dtHRZnwVOs&feature=related

and a huge thanks to Judi and everyone at Independance for the invite.

Archive Fever II

2008-10-07T18:32:00.017+01:00

Just received some photos of the Archive Fever II conference I took part in last month at Goldsmiths, so i thought I'd post a couple. In one I look like I've turned into a preacher man..not sure what happened there. Thanks to David for the photos.

The theme of the conference was "Building a Virtual Archive: Collections in the making." My presentation focused on searching electronic archives, such as youtube and the art of crate diggin' (searching out and collecting obscure records). I consider there to be many similarities between the museum archivist and the crate digger. And I'm particulary interested in the phenomenum of collectors posting their record collections onto youtube, and the issues that brings up in turns of copyright vs the desire to share this music within the public domain. Here's a great short film on crate diggin', parts of which I sampled live during the performance. Free Samples

The evening before the event, I was running through the presentation, which was a standard powerpoint job and I thought there's something not right here, and it's a bit dull. Then I realised that I wasn't being true to the project's ethos of sampling, trialing and mixing things up. So I decided at the very very very last minute to give a kind of improvised performance - searching, mixing and scratching clips from youtube, one turntable and various vinyl from my collection, my AKAI MPC, and video and audio recordings from the Sampler-Culture Clash workshops we've run.

It was the first time I'd tried anything like that before, and in a more formal seminar type environment. Normally the room is dark, I'm drunk, and well the audience is drunk too!! Needless to say it was hmm..chaotic, particularly when my computer crashed half way through. As one audience member put it "yours was the distinctive presentation", which I took as a compliment. It seemed to go down well though, and was definitely more interesting for me in terms of presenting an idea in a lecture theatre setting. Something to think about and build on. If you were there it would be good to get your feedback.

I'll post a video of my presentation when I get a copy of the film. Oh and I really enjoyed the conference, with some really interesting and diverse speakers. I recommend you check the Constance Howard link on the right of my blog page to find out more.

Cross stitchin' Brick Lane

2008-10-06T23:19:00.015+01:00

Just to say thanks to the fine and very helpful folk at Random Monkey Design for an enjoyable afternoon yesterday at their cupcakes, cocktails and cross-stitch event. It was a wet and cold sunday in London, but it was great to see over 100 people in 93feeteast getting into the cross stitch experience. Great cakes too. Looking forward to more of their events.

Here's the start of my design....camera ran out of batteries!!! Got to finish this one.

more info: www.random-monkey-design.com

lastminute.stuff

2008-10-04T22:23:00.014+01:00

Quick last minute post to let you know about a couple of stitching events happening this week in London town.

The fine ladies from the New Embroidery Group are taking a break from the world of performance poetry to return to their first love - embroidery. They are exhibiting at the Knitting and Stitching show at Alexander Palace 9-12 Oct...so please make a trip and give them some support. I know they'd be delighted to see you. The show tours to Dublin and then Harrogate later this year.

For more info: www.twistedthread.com

The second is the Urban Cross Stitch event Cupcakes, Cocktails and Cross Stitch at 93feeteast in Brick Lane at 3pm this Sunday 5 October.
For more info: www.93feeteast.co.uk/diary

I'll be poppin along to see what it's all about. It seems like the perfect way to spend a sunday. Maybe see a few of you there for a Bloody Mary or five.

Oh, and for those kind souls who have enquired about their pattern to sound clips..Jason is away in India at the moment collaborating with folk musicians from Rajastan. So when he returns....

Cut 'n' Paste

2008-09-22T23:49:00.027+01:00

One of the activities we asked folk to get involved in last Thursday was to cut 'n' paste an embroidered sampler from the V&A's collection. This sampler was produced by Mary Ann Body in 1789, aged 9.

Here are the instructions:

and here are some of the fantastic results:

Please have a go and e-mail me the image(s) of your result(s) to:
porcupinefunk@yahoo.co.uk.

thanks

Thank you

2008-09-20T21:00:00.015+01:00

A quick post to say a huge thank you to everyone who made it down to Brixton on thursday to support the Sampler - Culture Clash work in progress event. It was an amazing evening - everything I was hoping for. There was a great mix of people and a really nice vibe. It was great to see people getting involved in the stitching (many for the first time), chatting and being so inventive with the cut n paste and pattern creation activities.

And of course a huge thank you to everyone who made the event possible - in particular the performers on the night: Jason Singh; Yusra Warsama; the embroiderers: Jan, Janice, Liz, Jacquie, Gillian and Moyra; the B-Girls Hattie, Joanne and Azara, Tom and Naz for dj-ing and Rob, Srdjana and Reuben for the visuals and filming.

Over the next few days, weeks and months I'll post clips of the performance, images of the pattern creation, with the corresponding sound, the giant sampler and the cut n paste work.

Once again thank you all for your support, and the amazing feedback we've received so far - it means a huge amount.

For those who weren't able to make it along, we're working towards a major event next year - so keep in touch. For now we're going to reflect on the research we've done so far and see where we take it next - so much more to explore yet.

Oh and if anyone has any photos or film clips of the event they could send me that would be top.

September

2008-09-06T19:54:00.008+01:00

"September" apart from being a classic Earth Wind and Fire song, is going to be a busy month for the Sampler - Culture Clash project.

I'm taking part in the the Archive Fever II conference at Goldsmiths on Friday 12th. My presentation will focus on the art of crate diggin', and the current trend of creating on-line archives of information, on sites such as you tube, rather than collections of physical objects. This throws up the thorny problem of the passionate enthusiast's desire to put stuff out into the public realm vs the owners of the copyright asking for it to be withdrawn. As result in many cases you have temporary archives - there one minute gone the next.
More info on the conference here: Archive Fever II

The second event is the Sampler - Culture Clash work in progress event on Thursday 18th September at London Printworks in Brixton. See flyer below for more info. The idea behind the event is to present some of the stuff we've been working on over the last six months and to engage the audience in helping to develop the project. We'll present a free-improvised performance mixing up embroidery, pattern into sound, beat-boxing, performance poetry, sampling, film clips and break dancing from a selection of Brixton B-Girls. I'm very excited to say that Rob Rainbow (ex-Light Surgeons) will be providing live visuals on the evening.

During the event, you'll have the chance to create patterns, a selection of which we'll turn into sound to use as a starting point for the performance; take part in creating a huge embroidered sampler and learn some new stitches working with some of the embroiderers and create your own poetry using cut 'n' paste techniques. There will be guest dj's droppin' their favourite breaks. I've no idea how it's going to go, it's going to be messy but it'll be fun.

We'd love to see you.

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

2008-08-07T22:26:00.007+01:00

Thanks to Pat (one of the embroiderers collaborating on the project) for letting me know about the recent Brian Eno interview on Radio 4's Today programme. He was discussing his new collaboration with David Byrne and their hugely influential work My Life in the Bush of Ghosts first released way back in 1981 and the crucial role sampling played in the record's creation.

You can find out more about the album by clicking on the My Life in the Bush of Ghosts link above.

One interesting element of the site, is that they have agreed under Creative Common licensing to give people free use to "edit, remix, sample and mutilate" two of the tracks. Alongside that they've invited people to post any new tracks they've produced sampling or remixing the original works.

Click here for the link to the Creative Common site explaining this form of copyright protection, which enables you to change your copyright terms from "all rights reserved" to "some rights reserved".

I'm looking forward to finding what this level of copyright means in practice. Let me know if you've used it already in your own work. Copying has been key to both textile embroidery sampler culture and dj culture. I'll do a further post concentrating on this issue.