Sonic Knitting in Beach Hut 15 with artist Felicity Ford

Jude Montague talks to sonic artist Felicity Felix Ford about her work with knitting and sound, part of the XMTR Festival 2024.

Textiles and artistic expression are finding places to intersect in contemporary arts, from live coded textile patterns and algorithms researched in depth by Alex McLean, known for his key role in developing live coding as musical practice, to the sound of textile making (for example looms and weaving) to ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) videos of touching and stroking different surfaces. Growing up in Bolton, the sound of textile manufacturing is part of my local history, and the rattle of the factory is sometimes said to have influenced the town’s version of the Lancashire accent, with the workers enunciating consonants particularly clearly to make themselves heard over the mechanical weaving and spinning.

I spoke to the artist Felicity Felix Ford about her work in the field and what she will be doing as part of the XMTR Festival.

What is your personal history with knitting and sound? How did you come up with the initial idea?

I’ve been combining knitting with sound since 2006. I was doing an MA in Sonic Art & Composition and took up knitting as a way to make friends in a new town. I found it fascinating and technical, and immediately fell in love with its connections with sound. There’s a rhythm to knitting; a yarn can be something you knit or a story you tell; and working with knit and with sound are slow processes. I like field recordings most of all, and the textures and traces of everyday life they contain; and when you knit something, it takes so long it can end up feeling like a record of time and place.

I hear you are knitting a sound system. That sounds exciting.

I knitted a sound system in 2006 as an early way to combine these media; I recorded lots of domestic sounds then played them back through an unruly tangle of speakers I’d soldered together and covered in yarn. The connections deepened as I got more interested in the provenance of wool – and in the troubling realisation that (at the time) much British wool was being burned, because the price it fetched didn’t cover the costs of transport and shearing. Petrochemical textiles have decimated the wool industry. I grew up in cities and didn’t know anything about wool and sheep breeds but, as I learned more, I discovered sound could be used to tell its story and promote the specialness and sustainability of this amazing resource. In 2009 I stayed with a shepherd here in Sussex – Julia Desch – and made an experimental radio show that started with her tending her lovely Wensleydale sheep on her farm; traveled to the mill where the yarn is spun; and eventually ended up with a quiet recording of me knitting it on my needles. I did a lot of research about wool-smuggling along the Sussex Coast that I would love to revisit now I’m here full time and can spend more time in the library and in all the amazing places from which wool was smuggled through the centuries!

What interesting encounters have you created in your work with textiles and sound art?

I did projects in Shetland and Estonia exploring connections between knitting and sound and became interested in textile traditions with a strong sense of place. I’ve moved around a lot and can’t lay claim to any particular knitting tradition, but I really like the idea of celebrating where we live in knit. So in 2014 I self-published a book about creating your own palettes, patterns and shading sequences based on the textures of your locality. I think the many hours I spent around Reading recording its sounds and standing still led me to notice lots of things – its brickwork patterns; the traces of its old biscuit factory; the brewery signs on old pubs. It’s a book about knitting, but it’s also a book about noticing the world around you – something that I feel listening can really give us.

I love looking at old signs around a town centre. There’s plenty to notice in Hastings.

What can we expect from your contribution to the XMTR Festival?

I am going to present knitting patterns you can hear, in a beach hut. This combines knitting and sound in a lovely pattern-based way; I will punch knitting patterns onto punch-cards that can then be played through my little music box. This allows us to hear knitwear motifs through patterns of pitch and rhythm. The patterns will be a mix of traditional Shetland and Estonian knitting patterns; and patterns from my own knitting books, that speak to the textures and details of Reading, where I lived for fourteen years.

What might you pursue in the future as you take your work forward?

In terms of future projects, I am excited to revisit my research on wool-smuggling; to discover the history of local textile traditions here in Hastings; and to see what palettes, patterns and motifs I can find in the interesting corners and details of our new home, here.

Experience the interactive punch card intersection of knitting and sound at the XMTR.FM Festival with Felicity Felix Ford. Make a punch-card featuring a favourite knitting chart, or browse the selection of punch-cards and listen to the sound worlds they reveal. 

Fri 27 September 2–4pm at Beach Hut 15

XMTR.FM

 

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