Fashion-Trend: Sonic Fabric

Sonic Fabric is a sound-emitting textile made from recycled audio cassette tape. It is woven from 50% prerecorded 1/8″ audio cassette tape and 50% cotton thread. Next to the elegant, mysterious look, the metallic material is audible: it can be “heard” by running a tape head across its surface.

“I had no idea when I first conceived of this project that the fabric would be “listenable”…”, explains the creator Alyce Santoro, a conceptual artist. “The point for me was just to get as many of my all-time favorite sounds onto the recording. So I made a collage of layered samples from my collection using an analog 4-track recorder. When you run the tape head over the fabric you are reading 4 or 5 strands of tape at once … in other words, 16 or 20 tracks all mixed together. It sounds kind of like scratching a record backwards or radio static.”

The original recordings, which are woven into Sonic Fabric, feature “things I’ve collected throughout my whole life. Music and sounds that had a great influence on me … everything from my high-school punk band, Jack Kerouac, ocean surf, shamanic medicine songs recorded in the Peruvian jungle, ambient city street noise..”, explains Santoro. She even started to sell limited-edition cassette tape copies for $5.

“Sonic fabric was inspired by the use of small strands of cassette tape as wind indicators, or “tell-tails”, on sailboats, and by Tibetan prayer flags that have wind-activated blessings inscribed on them”, explains the artist. Messenger bags made of the fabric are sold in boutiques in the West Village and Brooklyn. These items are hand loomed and sewn by a Tibetan women’s craft cooperative.

The most famous Sonic Fabric Dress was worn by Phish percussionist Jon Fishman, who played the dress live on stage in Las Vegas. Next to Santoro’s (½) Live soundtrack, some Sonic Fabric products also feature a collage of Jon Fishman’s favorite songs.

Sonic Fabric will now be mass-produced.

Sonic Fabric

Alyce Santoro

Rate this post:

No rating yet