Sonic Sails (The Tell-Tail Thankgas)

Alyce Santoro, Sonic Sails (The Tell-Tail Thankgas), sonic fabric (woven from 50% recorded audiocassette tape and 50% polyester thread), 270 x 270 cm, 2008. (© Alyce Santoro. Image courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego.)

Many years ago, when it first occurred to me to literally weave a fabric made of sound, I began by knitting with cassette tape. Knitting soon gave way to weaving using tape as weft and cotton thread as warp. The resulting material was quite surprising. It felt like a light canvas but had a beautiful, mysterious sheen and was not at all like the loose web I had been making by knitting. I called it sonic fabric.

Soon the sonic fabric panels began to cause an unexpected stir. One acquaintance suggested that I take apart an old cassette deck, run the tape head along the fabric’s surface and see if it would emit sound. Excitingly, since the tape’s magnetic properties are maintained throughout the weaving process, the fabric actually was audible. In wanting to give back to the Tibetan Buddhist culture that had partially inspired the project, I enlisted the aid of hand-weavers at a craft cooperative for Tibetan women refugees in Nepal. Simultaneously, I contacted a small textile mill near Providence, Rhode Island, that specialized in working with unusual materials.

Like Tibetan prayer flags, the work I have made from sonic fabric is truly intended to radiate the good vibrations it contains out into the world. The collages of sounds recorded onto the audiotapes are one wonderful aspect of this work, and the people who have nurtured, inspired and continue to support sonic fabric have made it a truly worthwhile journey.

Alyce Santoro
U.S.A.
URLs: www.sonicfabric.com, www.alycesantoro.com

Updated 5 November 2009