2025-2024 current research-Lace as sound

Lace as Sound evolved from a Research Fellowship at the Powerhouse Museum to translate lace as sound. I was fascinated by complex spatial relationships in lace created through a simple gesture of hand and thread. A collaboration unfolded with composer Mara Schwerdtfeger to translate stitches as musical scores. Four lace frills of a 19th-century English Branscombe were analysed. The empty spaces in lace are akin to silences in music; both create form, rhythm, and texture. Stitches became notes, their dots designed to reference early punch card systems in textile production, a precursor to computation.

To reimagine these harmonies as a new contemporary lace, sonic patterns were digitised through state-of-the-art Shima Seiki seamless knit technology. The complexity imbued in hand lace was matched and honoured through a coded knit programme. Over 1,600 needles simultaneously produced a lace knit comprising two distinct structures, front and back.  Poetically, when the Shima machine knits the musical scores, it “sings” the lace, giving material form to untold lacemaking histories.

Acknowledgements.

Powerhouse Museum,

University of Technology Knit Lab,

Mara Schwerdtfeger & Shirley Tam, UTS

Dimensions: 270 cm x 60 cm

Materials: The materials used have considered sustainable methodologies and lifecycles. The final knit combines deadstock wool yarn with a microfilament designed to float allusively between motifs. Material waste was minimised through judicious testing.

Photo credit: Finn Marchant