POP recently travelled to Utrecht to collaborate with COPIM’s Julien McHardy and sound maker Nahuel Canu on a musical piece in which we set out to listen to the archive. Together we made a score for sewing machines, sampler and voice from patent data. Many thanks to Het Huis Utrecht for the lovely space to work together.
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Over the last few weeks we have been working closely with one of the patents in our WORKING Theme – Martha Gowan’s 1903 invention for ‘Improvements in and relating to the Construction and Use of Counter, Office, or Factory Pockets for personal wear’. This is essentially a pocket, made up of five pockets, hung from the waist for women working in offices, factories and retail shops.
As per our usual method of researching + reconstructing + reimagining patent data, we closely read the patent, did related archive research into her life and social and political happenings at the time of her invention. We then translated the patent into a sewing pattern and made it into a calico toile.
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Text from Martha Gowan’s 1903 patent
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Image from Martha Gowan’s 1903 patent
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Sewing pattern made from Martha Gowan’s 1903 patent
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Calico toile of Martha Gowan’s 1903 patent
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We spent two days – one in rehearsal and one performing and filming – the piece with Julien directing, Nahuel live composing, voice artist Margo van Der Linde and two sewers, Emma Hoette and myself and filmmaker Juan Fernández Gebauer.
We hired two industrial sewing machines which were treated like musical instruments. Everyone experimented in ‘reading’ the patent and sewing pattern as a musical score, responding to each other’s interpretation and working together as players. Throughout we listened to the invention and inventor emerging in the these different media.
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We worked on the floor, in text and tape, with materials and eclectic instruments, with scissors in sound, and talk to prepare. We cut the patent text into scenes and added extra instructions by way of sewing symbols to the text – these included “stretch”, “cut” “length” and “shorten” “zigzag”. We filmed for about 5 hours but will turn this into a 10-15min piece.
We look forward to sharing the film and more about the collaboration in the new year.
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