Kirsten Faulkner
Bachelor of Design (Third Year)
The brief
To develop and manage a complex research program and project that clearly demonstrates a sophisticated synthesis of previously learned disciplinary specialisations, theory, research, and practice.
Music is more than sound: it’s a multi-disciplinary experience. The practices of craft (textiles and object disciplines) and music are intertwined to enhance the experience of music, through tactility and material connection. knitted sounds is a method of generating textile patterns based on musical motifs. The method has been applied to a structural performance installation that expands and contracts with the musicians movements as if it was alive and breathing. The haptic and visual language of music is revealed through material translation: starting with a short musical motif - using graphic notation to visualise the motif - digitally “weaving” the motifs together into a series of digital samples - translating the sample into a knit pattern - and finally hand-knitting into a physical tactile sample.
Knitted sounds operates at the intersection of textiles and music - two practices that have been central to my life. By mapping the elements and principles of knitting and music, I made connections between stitches and musical notes, textures of different yarns and textures of different sounds and the effects of hand and machine knitting with woodwind and electronic instruments. These connections broadened my understanding of how the two practices were intimately connected and how they could be fused together.
Acknowledgement of Country
UNSW School of Art & Design stands on an important place of learning and exchange first occupied by the Bidjigal and Gadigal peoples.
We acknowledge the Bidjigal and Gadigal peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land that our students and staff share, create and operate on. We pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend this respect to all First Nations peoples across Australia. Sovereignty has never been ceded.
