Interweaving Patterns and Sound Practices: De-coding Pattern Singing

univie.ac.at

Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice, 2019

Co-creation describes a process of bringing customer and creator together to produce items of mutual value, allowing the design aspect of production to sit between customer and creator. A major step-change enabling such a process is the ability to link consumer design inspiration with pattern creation software linked to manufacturing equipment. One aspect of supporting such a process includes fashioning tractable methods to collect and manipulate “design inspiration” that a customer can input into and that are amenable to the application of computer-based production. Here we describe research in progress exploring the use of “data-driven designs” that challenge the existing visual bias of textile design, using the Scottish context as an example; and offer up a process by which these explorations can transformed towards a customer-creator model: transforming bioacoustics data recorded from the soundscape into woven, knitted or printed/embroidered textiles.

Patricia Flanagan, 2022

This presentation was given as part of China–UK Humanities Alliance for Higher Education (UKCHA), Institute for World Literatures and Cultures (IWLC), International Forum Series “World Maps and World Cultures” Chinese Cultures, Translation and Contemporaneity: Literature – Cinema - Performance - Visual Arts A THREE-DAY ONLINE FORUM Abstract Global digitisation and distribution of data has resulted in a growing awareness of traditional and contemporary Chinese culture. However, the fungibility of data and the speed of dissemination comes with risk of erasure of cultural connection to place. This presentation explores ethnic minority Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) practises of Guizhou China by tracing the intangible gestures of crafts such as Shui horse tail embroidery and Miao batik. The authors reveal significant critical encounters that emerge at the fuzzy intersection of perspectives between traditional and contemporary practice and at local and global levels. ICH can be viewed as the continual translation of traditional wisdom through contemporary creative practice and this presentation gives voice to makers, craft knowledge keepers, and indigenous perspective (providing counter narratives to traditional eastern and western cultural epistemologies) in asking questions: How to cultivate talent and engage village and city children in the inheritance and development of ICH in Guizhou? How to foster cultural capital to meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations? Due to the complex terrain and vast territory of China, especially the inconvenient transportation in ancient times, there are great differences in languages, so rich and colourful local folk-songs and craft practises have been formed. In this light, the significance of rhythms and patterns go beyond aesthetics, providing continued connection to ancient knowledge, they record and propagate myths, folk-customs and life. ICH technology is inseparable from human labour. To explore the expression of ancient music and craft from ICH techniques, we consider the labour characters of music and making, and consider the performance of melody and pattern and its interpretation into contemporary cultural experience through art, design, and music. The research draws on Material Thinking, Material Culture Theory, Object Oriented Ontology, Craft-based Human Computer Interaction and contemporary craft theory.

10th International Shibori Symposium, 2017

Traditional Natural Aal Dye or the Red Madder extract is derived from the root of the Madder plant and is used for patterning of textiles around the World. This paper reviews the traditional Aal dyeing technique of the Bastar region of Chattisgarh in India and the pit loom, supplementary extra weft weaving technique of the Pata Sari woven by the Pankas, a weaver community of this region. It further reports how the design and motif inspiration from the nature and daily life of the tribal's are adapted and woven as flowers, stars, birds, animals, butterflies, crab, turtle, temple, pot, axe, and tree motifs in the textile piece. It further reports that there is a symbiotic relationship shared by the tribes, the nature and the weavers. This also reflects in the design elements of the hand woven textiles that are simple, raw and naive, yet aesthetically beautiful. Tribal rites and rituals demand for the textile pieces ensures sustainable earning for the Pankas. This beautiful interdependence and choice of using locally available resource and know how to create for consumption is an elementary connect of the craft and artisan towards a sustainable existence.

Granthaalyah Publication and Printers, 2023

The visual language and narrative of a traditional embroidery is par excellence. It carries with it folklores which have transcended from generation to generation with its exquisiteness. One such embroidery is of the Lambanis or the Banjaras, also referred to as the Indian Gypsies. Their embroidery connotes a semiotic system for communicating and interpreting various colours, patterns, stitches, surface embellishments and it has within it a hidden language that is made up of a collection of cultural symbols that communicate on various social and psychological levels. Embroidery is a complete language connoting a semiotic system for communicating and interpreting various colours, patterns, stitches, surface embellishments. The Lambanis have inherited a rich folk tradition of embroidery with exquisite patterns and a voluminous stitch vocabulary. The surface additives added to their embroidery incorporate myriad elements like the mirror(shisha), shells(cowries), beads, applique work, rustic coins, and metal buttons. The exceptional and meticulous utilization of these create a story par excellence. The surface additives utilized in the Lambani culture connotes various aspects of their culture and though used as an extra element along with the embroidery their function is beyond ornamentation and carry several meanings. This paper is an attempt by the researcher to understand, interpret and decode the reasons behind incorporating these surface additives in the embroidery to finally create a masterpiece. The paper also extrapolates on the researcher's travel experiences to various pockets of India where the Lambanis have settled and her inferences of their embroidery in terms of the embellishments, stiches, patterns, and finesse.

Fusion Journal, 2020

Despite almost universal participation in textile use, an understanding of the fundamentals of textile construction within the global north appears to be increasingly superficial. The typical person is largely unexposed to the making process of textiles and textile products, as production is outsourced to locations distant from the final user. In recent years, fashion and textile designers have attempted to engage users in their making processes through the use of various supporting media. My intention is not to disregard the production of additional media, but to propose a turn to utilising the textile itself as the site for further user engagement. In this article I reflect on my experiences working with weavers in rural Bangladesh as part of my creative practice and postgraduate research. There, through multisensorial observation, I began to see each 'weaving' (noun/verb) not as a flat thing but as a multidimensional changescape (Gibson vii). Ephemeral moments occurring during the making process were found to materialise within each weaving, acting as a physical record of the spatial, temporal and personal traces of making. Using photography, these traces have been visually amplified in order to involve each weaving in the narration of its own creation.

2004

Fig.1. Wall painting, Afrasiyab, ambassadors wearing tailored garments of silk patterned with pearl roundels and ogival forms bearing animal motifs. Central personage appears to be proffering a bolt of silk patterned with pearl roundels.

Craft Research, 2010

This article describes a body of collaborative work titled Fifteen Images (Le Jardin Pluvieux). This web-based artefact brings novel approaches to textile representation in work produced under the umbrella of a practice-based research project in music called Active Notation -a collective name for a set of approaches that seek to 're-conceptualize' the nature of music notation and the performer's relationship with it. Research undertaken during the creation of Fifteen Images investigated both aural and visual reception and issues of materiality and temporality in digital representations: how textile objects might become effective visual partners in the temporal domain of score-led music performance. Developed to exist primarily as a software artefact on the web, it links to a physical installation and performance that has stylistic and theoretical associations with the UK touring exhibition Taking Time (Carnac 2009). A description is given of the digital assets that support the project as a whole, the digital animation of textile images and the interaction with live musical performance. The article concludes with a review of the completed work and implications for future projects.

2016

2011

polyphonic singing, its roles and practice and the perception of destiny as represented in ancient Greek mythology, literature and philosophy are explored in this paper. an analogy drawn between them, between the living reality and the constructed reality, depicts connections that help weave polyphonic narration. Contextualization of polyphonic singing as a truly world phenomenon that encompasses aspects inherent in human nature and condition, while forming a manifestation of cultural diversity, is achieved through a broad perspective employing linguistics, social anthropology and philosophy. Thus, cultural phenomena such as polyphonic singing, although often employed in political discourse and the formation of national identity — with the narrative of self and other, directly involved, particularly in border areas — can no longer constitute issues of culture ownership.

2001

Music is ubiquitous in the social life of the Y olngu people of northeast Arnhem Land in northern Australia. Not only does it accompany virtually every phase of ritual, including dance, painting, and the production of sacred objects, but it is frequently performed in non-ritual contexts as well, purely for the enjoyment of performers and listeners alike. As such, an understanding of music provides a unique and privileged point of entry into the study of Yolngu culture as a whole. The ethnomusicologist Anthony Seeger has written that an anthropology of music examines the ways in which music is an integral part of culture, while in contrast a musical anthropology examines the ways in which culture is musical and aspects of culture are created and re-created through musical performance. This dissertation is a work of musical anthropology. I provide a detailed examination of the form, content, and meaning of the songs of one particular group of Yolngu, the DhaJwangu people of the commun...

Leonardo, 2009

This paper will discuss how Shoowa Kuba textiles could be analyzed as an ornament that can be digitally constructed and applied in design. An historical outline of ornament is provided by briefly comparing Classical and Gothic ornaments. This theoretical framework is then compared to the art of Shoowa Kuba focusing on their textile embroideries. Various patterns and techniques will be introduced showing how Kuba people implement rules as well as how they break them. These patterns will be digitally reconstructed to show their applicability to the digital design domain.

2021

Since the end of the nineteenth century, sound recording was one of main prerequisites for establishing ethnomusicology as a scientific discipline. From the earliest development of ethnomusicology until the present day, there have been numerous precious collections of musical forms and performances in various contexts, which nowadays testify about musical practices, but also about methodological approaches in the field. Fundamental technological innovation such as digitization has provided numerous benefits with respect to the availability of sound collections, yet at the same time it has altered the ways of listening, creating and documenting music today. On the other side, sound collecting has been enriched with moving image component (which also can be perceived as sounding image), so contemporary ethnomusicological recording provides much more useful information for research and archiving, in comparison to earlier epochs. In that sense, ethnomusicology worldwide is actively deal...

The following are excluded from review and should not be sent: offprints; reeditions, except those with great and significant changes; journal volumes, except the first in a new series; monographs of very small size and scope; and books dealing with the archaeology of the New World.