Textile Society of America
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings
Date of this Version
2024
Document Type
Presentation
Citation
Textile Society of America 2024 Symposium
Shifts & Strands: Rethinking the Possibilities and Potentials of Textiles, November 12-17, 2024, a virtual event
Abstract
Inhabiting Numbers: Polyphony as Woven Sound explores connections between vocal polyphony and textile practices, specifically weaving and spinning. Rather than consider music and weaving as separate from one another, the following paper presents the ways in which they are deeply intertwined and mutually constitutive forms of cultural expression. The technical modes of thinking produced through repetition inherent in both—particularly as practices utilizing complex mathematical structures—produce ways of thinking unique to each. Through practice, I suggest these technical modes of making transit across different materials and mediums—in both explicit and implicit ways. The music created through the interweaving of multiple voices creates a musical texture that is akin to a woven cloth. Likewise, the structuring of speech (particularly in ritual song), use of vocal color/texture of participants, antiphonal call-and-response (much like a mirrored pattern in weaving), and affinities between musical and woven structures are examples of the themes explored. The aim of the study is to better understand the ways music and material culture are deeply interwoven. By resituating polyphonic vocal traditions in the material-kinesthetic contexts in which they were developed and practiced, the paper recognizes the various ways in which embodied activities inform and shape one another.
Included in
Applied Mathematics Commons, Art and Materials Conservation Commons, Art Practice Commons, Fashion Design Commons, Fiber, Textile, and Weaving Arts Commons, Fine Arts Commons, Museum Studies Commons, Music Theory Commons
Comments
Published by the Textiles Society of America
Copyright 2024, the author. Used by permission