Carpet Entanglement

Joseph Burgess

Carpet Entanglement
Image credit: Joseph Burgess

Abstract:

Textile production, music, and technology are historically entangled. This performance explores the long-standing interaction between textile arts and musical practice through the carpet tufting gun as a novel electroacoustic interface. This historical connection underscores the deep-rooted interplay between material craft and sonic expression, which has continued to evolve alongside technological advancements. Carpet entanglement emphasises the ongoing generative interplay between media and mediums highlighting the tufting gun as a site of embodied, material engagement.

By leveraging the tufting gun’s distinctive acoustic properties and electromechanical kinetics, this work reimagines the tool as a vehicle for structured musical composition and improvisation. The performance transforms the gun’s utilitarian form and mechanical expressive qualities—such as its rhythmic firing, material resonance, and tactile feedback—into a dynamic paletteof itinerant musical gestures. The tufting gun serves a dual role: as an acoustic sound source and as an interactive performance interface, bridging textile craft and experimental sound art.

Carpet Entanglement reinforces the existing connection between textiles, technology, and music, highlighting the tufting gun’s potential as a tool for artistic expression while situating it within a broader historical and technological narrative. Through this performance, the tufting gun becomes a mediator between the tactile, material world of textile production and the ephemeral, sonic world of music, embodying the interwoven processes of making and performing.