Fabricmachine

source: highlike

Work: Fabricmachine is an instrument and interactive sound installation. The composition is notated by multiple loops of fabric that move along motor driven rollers. Light sensors determine the pitch and rhythm of the sound. The material´s woven pattern is responsible for the algorithms of electro acoustic sound generation. The way in which the pieces of cloth have been sewn together is responsible for the beats, breaks, and rhythms in the score. Fabricmachine undertakes a search for musical structures found in the texture and composition of fabrics, and thus, cultural artefacts like textiles become a medium of data storage. (published by NODE 13 festival, Frankfurt).
In her sound installation Fabricmachine , Kathrin Stumreich interprets textile fabric as sound-on- film track. Using optical sensor, she translates the moving structure of fabric panels into a rhythmic soundscape. This installation reduces one of the earliest digital applications, the automatic industrial production of weaving patterns , to a state of sensual perception. The fabrics are arranged not for their fashionable value but as notation of a multi-layered sound collage. (published by NODE 13 festival, Frankfurt).
Photographer: Johannes Schrems
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source: everydaylistening

There is something fascinating about playing the sounds of seemingly unplayable things. We have seen how in Harvest by Olle Cornéer and Martin Lübcke the soil gets played like a record, with a huge needle. In Fabric Machine we can listen to the sound of fabric, being played like a tape.

The machine, created by Kathrin Stumreich in Vienna, plays multiple loops of fabric. Light sensors are used to generate the sounds and the quality and density of the cloth determine the pitch and the rhythm of the sound. So for example, the number of threads interrupting the light per second determine the pitch of the sound.

While Fabric Machine can be exposed like an installation, Kathrin Stumreich also performs with it, like an instrument, playing various ‘fabrictracks’ while one loop is dedicated to more rhythmic patters while the other one is used to create pitched material.