(created with kim martin & nancy dwyer)

the project
Sewing Audio is an installation exploring ideas of information overload, media manipulation, and ideas of the 'self'. This work uses changes in audio produced by daytime soap operas to control the speed of a sewing machine needle which pounds through a rag doll - destroying it over time. The sound is analyzed (using algorithms) for its dramatic tension. The more dramatic the scene - the faster the needle pummels through the rag doll.



concept
Exploring the traditionally female spaces of the sewing machine and the soap opera, Sewing Audio maps emotional constructions through the destructive force of a sewing machine.

Given that waves can be destructive (micro-waves heating objects to the point of explosion, low frequency sound-waves deteriorating skin tissue, ocean waves grinding boulders into sand), we decided to use a 'wave gathering machine' as our input device - a television (originally we used a radio for prototyping). Focusing on sound waves, we explore an area in which the user is generally comfortable - making it easier for him/her to access our installation conceptually and spatially without apprehension. As an output device, we are using a machine which culturally reads as a technology of creation - the sewing machine. Yet, in this project, we seek to explore the destructive powers that this machine possesses in order to physicalize both the information overload occurring in our lives and television's potential for the creation of destructive self-images, emotions, and expectations.

In our installation, the user is able to influence the input by changing the station and adjusting the volume. This analog information is used to control the speed with which the needle of the sewing machine moves up and down. This needle repeatedly 'impales' a faceless, personality-less, rag doll - and, over time, destroys the doll completely through repetition of information. Gathered around the base of the table are piles of dolls that have already gone through this ordeal. The pile grows over time.

technology
The audio-out from the television set is connected directly to a computer - where the sound is analyzed. The computer then communicates with a microprocessor (in this case a PIC chip) which controls an X10 box plugged into a wall outlet. This box regulates the voltage going into the sewing machine (plugged into another wall outlet in the room) - thus changing the speed of the needle.