Hand-Made Embroidered Electromyography

Some of you will know that I have had a long standing relationship with CoRE, Centre for Robotics Research at Kings College London.  Last year I was involved in an EPSRC GCRF project to investigate the potential of hand sewn e-textile muscle sensors as a reusable and lower cost alternative to mass produced sensors.

I am very pleased to announce that thanks to Samuel Pitou and Matthew Howard’s hard work, a paper on this project has just been published in the MDPI Journal Sensors.  You can read about it here https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/12/3347

I ran a series of workshops with the women’s group Shelanu in Birmingham and at the Science Gallery in London to help  test this hypothesis.  Participants were asked to sew and test a given number of sensors and these were then laboratory tested later.

So this is the technical jargon bit…..When you move a muscle in your body electrical impulses, electromyopthy, can be measured on the surface of the skin (sEMG).  This research project was to compare the results for hand embroidered sEMGs alongside machine stitched and mass produced single use stick on sensors.  The rationale was that because they are on a fabric substrate there is potential for laundering and therefore re-use which may be a cheaper and more sustainable.   Because a hand sewn sensor does not need expensive equipment and relies on straight forward sewing techniques there is also the potential for them to be made by Community Interest Companies (CIC) within the populations of the low income countries where they might be used.

Want to know what the point is?  This short film shows embroidered sEMGs picking up electrical impulses on the skin to drive a robotic limb

The Covid Quilts: Part 1

The first half of the year has been an unusual one for us all.   When lockdown finally happened I had already witnessed my partner, Nicky,  trying to plan for the oncoming storm for at least 4 weeks; I had read the stories of the overwhelmed hospitals in Northern Italy; my brother was locked down in Southern Spain; it was clear it was going to be bad.

 

Many of you will know that Nicky works in Cardiology and specifically Echocardiology (ultrasounds of the heart).  The procedure is a 40 minute, intimate scan that is on a par to cuddling the patient.  In the run up to lockdown she told tales of scanning coughing patients dressed only in a plastic apron and gloves because although they were symptomatic they were undiagnosed because the test results were taking 6 days to come back; at that point the hospital would not let staff wear masks unless there was a confirmed diagnosis.  The guidelines on PPE kept changing and it was a constant battle for her and her team.  She was fitted for the special masks that were for use on the Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU) and began to talk about 12 hour shifts working around the clock.  The hospital was adding extra beds to ITU and converting operating theatres to additional ITU wards; work started on the Nightingale Hospital at the NEC.  I know it was tough on her kitting up (they call it donning and doffing) and going onto the wards dressed in the full gear; she stopped talking about what she saw.

And what was I doing?  I was working from home (and then furloughed) for the sewing machine distributors of Pfaff and Husqvarna Viking that I provide technical support for.  My three days a week at Hereford College of Art went onto zoom tutorials and seminars trying to reassure students that it was all going to be okay.  Whilst this was really important, it was not the life and death experience that Nicky was going through. 

It was scary.  I felt impotent.

I am a quilter; so I made a quilt

I found myself chanting the message ‘Stay Safe’ whenever she or I went out.  On the back of the earlier Recovery Quilts it seemed a logical step to make a Covid Quilt saying that.  I wanted to sew something that was as positive and joyous as possible and hang it in as public a place.

The first quilt was made very quickly and I taped it into the front window so people walking past could see it.  Technically its unfinished as its still a quilt top only.  I will admit that it was actually sellotaped in place.  The second, more considered version is quilted and hangs in my sister’s front window on the busy street in Hove she lives on.  Annoyingly her quilt is much better than mine.

Flying across an embroidery

Back in 2016 I worked on a commission for the Royal Shakespeare Company.  As part of the events to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death the RSC asked artists to make work in response to cast and creative’s favourite quotes.  I worked with composer Isobel Waller-Bridge’s choice of Caliban’s speech from ‘The Tempest’.  I focussed on two elements of the speech; firstly the part where Caliban likens noises on the island to ‘a thousand twangling instruments’ and secondly the part where Caliban speaks of dreaming and clouds.
The video above is a rendering film showing the digitisation of the embroidery.

http://www.isobelwaller-bridge.com/

 Here are two of the finished pieces

Singing Quilts:All the things you are not yet

My Singing Quilt, ‘All the things you are not yet’ features a mobile phone photograph of two pre-implantation embryos digitally printed onto cotton.  This fabric has been embroidered with conductive threads to make fabric speakers that play a sound file of those embryos, now 5 years old boys, singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.’  The soft circuits have been designed that the sound file is triggered when the quilt is touched.  Because the speakers are made from fabric the sound has a faint, ghost like quality and you need to put your head near the quilt to hear it.  This means the experience for the viewer is both interactive and intimate.

This was made with the help of the Centre for Robotics Research, Kings College London.

Recovery Quilts: The path back

Recovery Quilt 3 : Out of the dirt, 2019, approx 180x120cms

I’ve been on a bumpy road lately.  Challenging things have happened to me and those around me.

It left me in a dark place.  

Whilst I have been working, it’s been on project work.  I hadn’t done a piece of personal studio work for about two and a half years.  In the past my studio practice has always been the safety valve; a way to vent the pressure.  But this time I couldn’t work; I was blank; I was empty; I lost my way.

As part of the journey, back I decided to make a quilt; a comforter.  It was the action of making that was to be the important bit.  It was a private thing.  There was no ‘story’ to tell. I wasn’t thinking of you, the audience, just myself as a maker.  Think of it as a displacement activity.  The main criterion was it was to be joyous.  When faced with a design choice I had to choose the more joyful option; to go for a trumpet blare of colour rather than the sludgy monochrome I have been submerged in.

And I wanted it to be technically slick.  Contained, flat with very accurate stitchery.  Some might say it’s out of character.

But at the same time, I don’t want these ‘Recovery Quilts’ to be bland ‘fridge magnet’ quilts with insipid inspirational quotes.  The words are very personal to me.  The texts have been chanted in my head the whole time; my mantras for getting through.

The piece above is Recovery Quilt 3 : Out of the dirt.  It has been shortlisted for the Vlieseline Fine Art Textiles Award, one of the most prestigious textile competitions in Europe.  It will be on show at Festival of Quilts NEC Birmingham 1-4^th August.  I can't explain how great that has made me feel.  

Recovery Quilt 3: Out of the dirt.  detail of digital embroidery and applique.

How do you show a 100m long piece without a 100m long plinth?

You might remember my piece '1 hours production = 1 ½ miles = 15 lengths' that a created for Lesley Millar’s show 'Cloth and Memory 2' at Salts Mill, Saltaire, West Yorkshire.  The piece contains my biometric data recorded whilst running in the Spinning room at the mill as a metaphor for woollen cloth production in the 19^th century.  I made the piece specifically for the space but have been thinking how I could also show you in other venues.  Its 100 m in length and whilst I had the luxury of a plinth that long at Salts Mill I know that is unlikely to be repeated.

So I have been thinking how I could show this piece again in another venue…..one without an enormous plinth!  

This year I will be showing the piece at Festival Of Quilts, NEC, Birmingham 1^st - 4^th August.  We will hang the piece from the ceiling letting it drop from the 15m ceiling and letting it rise again before wrapping it around the stand itself.