My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

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.

Stitched Consequences

Last week I met up with some of the embroiderers collaborating on the project. It was great to see everyone again and find you what they were up to and their future plans. What's great is that, although we're not able to all get together so often everyone is still hugely committed to, and excited about, developing the project.

We spent the day playing stitched consequences - i don't know if that officially exits as a term, but hey it does now. The idea was to build on the written consequences we had worked on with Yusra during the first workshop, which created an amazing series of spoken word poems. I do promise I'll post some of these asap.

The rules of the game. Well i'm sure you all know the rules of consequences but so you get an idea of what went on. We started by listening to the audio tracks we had recorded from the previous workshop, to use them as initial stimulus to starting to stitch. We each had a piece of fabric 50cm x 2 metres (cotton) and a random selection of threads that everyone had brought along. We each had 20 minutes to stitch some work anywhere on the fabric, any size, any stitch and any image. After the 20 minutes was up we passed the fabric to the person sat next to us to continue the work, taking it in a new direction. This continued until we had each stitched on each piece of cloth. The 20 minute limit meant that we had to be spontaneous and improvise with the threads we had, and not think too much about what we were stitching. Improvisation and spontaneity have been core throughout the project to date. At this stage it is all about experimenting and not being precious about what we create, and not thinking about the end product, but continuing to ask "What if?"

As always, there was great conversation during the day. It actually felt like a real luxury to spend a whole day, stitching, talking, and drinking cups of tea. People talk about the therapeutic qualities of embroidery, and when you spend time not thinking about anything else and get lost in the process of creation and the act of stitching, you understand what they mean. Here is a selection of some of the work created during the day. These will be passed on to the other collaborators who weren't able to make it along on the day, to add their input. We'll use them to inspire and create other stitched, visual, written and audio work.

A huge thank you to Liz, Pat, Jan, Jackie, Jacqui, Kathy, Kate and Srdjana.

Sampler and The Bard

Well it was mid-summer's night a couple of days ago, and thanks to Jason for lettting me know about the mention of a sampler in Shakespeare's A Midsummer's Night Dream, from Act III scene II... Helena conversing with Hermia.

"Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
Now I perceive they have conjoin'd all three
To fashion this false sport, in spite of me.
Injurious Hermia! most ungrateful maid!
Have you conspired, have you with these contrived
To bait me with this foul derision?
Is all the counsel that we two have shared,
The sisters' vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us,--O, is it all forgot?
All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower, Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in one key,
As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grow together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition;
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one and crowned with one crest.
And will you rent our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly, 'tis not maidenly:
Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,
Though I alone do feel the injury."

MC's for Life

Hi folks..it's been a while! Life, work and travel have all got in the way of any recent posts. Not that I'm complaining. However, ideas and connections for how the project might progress have all been whirring away in the back of my head. I've got some of the audio tracks and films of the first "sampler " workshop, so there will be some highlights of each day appearing over the next couple of weeks - I promise! I met with the embroiderers today to catch up and plan our next session - a day of stitched consequences in July. It was great to see everyone again, and the continued passion for the project.


But in the meantime, continuing on that spoken word element of the project I just got an e-mail flyer for the MC's for Life events taking place in Birmingham and Manchester this weekend. So if you happen to be there and there are any tickets left..make haste. A great line up of MC's..including the likes of Black Thought (the Roots), Lord Finesse and one of my favourite female poets Ursula Rucker.

Women are the beating heart of the sampler project and discussions about women, sister, mother, daughter have been re-occuring themes so far. So here's Ursula Rucker's What a Woman Must Do and another one of my favourite tracks with 4Hero - Loveless.

peace.

Public Enemy

Well, I've just come to the end of the first workshop for the Sampler project - it was an amazing experience. I'll post highlights from each day over the next week. My head is too mashed to write about it now.



Last night I went to see Public Enemy at the Brixton Academy, the perfect way to end a fantastic week. Chuck D, Flavor Flav, the Bomb Squad and crew (sadly no Terminator X). 20 year anniversary of arguably the best Hip Hop LP of all time, It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back.



Click here for (still after 20 years) my favourite Public Enemy track: Rebel Without A Pause

Somehow managed to get into the after party at the Dex Club in Brixton....and the highlight of the night..Chuck D freestylin' over Coldcut droppin Cross the Tracks.

Open Source Embroidery

Last friday I attended the opening of the Open Source Embroidery project at the HTTP Gallery for Networked Media Art, a great little space tucked away in a small industrial estate in Manor House, north London. It's off the beaten track, but it's definitely worth making the effort to search it out.

Open Source Embroidery is a project facilitated by Ele Carpenter that explores the common characteristics of embroidery alongside other textile practices such as quilting and knitting with open source computing, in particular the collective process of making and sharing knowledge and experience.

Check out the open source embroidery link below, which aswell as fantastic information about the project, includes some great links to other interesting embroidery projects.

Here's some links related to the project and the gallery:
Open Source Embroidery
furtherfield.org
HTTP Gallery for Networked Media Art

back to back

"So how's the embroidery comin' along?" I hear you all shout (not!).

Well, I've been laid down with flu all week, and there's only so much daytime telly you can watch before you start to lose the plot.....that Goldenballs quiz with Jasper Carrot..I ask you??? So I thought it was an ideal time to get down to business and learn.

So here's the result so far. Embroiderers look away now!

Yeh I know it's not very good and not very straight, but hey it's a start!
I learnt the back stitch, which apparently is a good basic stitch to start off, and used for straight and curved lines and fine detail. I don't think much of the type face that came with the kit, but at this stage I'm just focussing on learning, and trying to perfect, the stitch.

Click here for a clip on learning how to Back stitch . Check out the funky drummin' at the start of the clip

That got me thinking about some of the basics of dj-ing, and one of the first things you learn is playing two records back to back - dragging each record back to repeat the same part of a record on two (or more) turntables to form a continuous loop.

Check this clip for the equivalent of the back stitch - dj style.

What I love about both music and embroidery cultures is that willingness to share knowledge..to show other people how to learn the skills involved in both art forms. For example, there are hundreds of videos on You Tube, showing you how to learn to stitch and how to learn to DJ. I'll feature a few of my favourites (including some truly bizarre ones) as we go along.