We have begun developing the embroidered speakers for the
Paths to Utopia project. I am working
with Dr Matthew Howard from the Centre for Robotics Research, KCL and one of
his students Bowen Han. The samples in
the picture are a variety of stitched wires and conductive threads. Unusually for me these first samples were all
free motion embroidered by hand with a mixture of couching and cabling. The first test was to see if we could get
signal to go through the circuits and we managed it on all the samples. Of course some samples were better than
others but we could get an audible but quiet ‘buzz’. That was because we weren’t amplifying the signal
but we will look to try and do that later in the process.
The next stage was to actually digitally embroider the speakers
for two reasons. We can accurately
measure the length of the thread so we can then accurately work out the
electronics and secondly because they do look lovely when they are done that
was.
This project is made possible with the support of The
Cultural Institute at King’s College London, premiering as part of Utopia
2016.
