Milan 2014: London design duo Glithero will present a range of textiles that have been woven using organ punch cards in Milan next week (+ slideshow).
Commissioned by the Zuiderzee Museum and the Textiel Museum in the Netherlands, Glithero's Woven Song project creates fabric using punch cards that would normally feed music through a mechanical organ.
"The music is on a punch card called an organ music book," the studio told Dezeen. "A Jacquard loom is also fed information using a punch card so the music code from the organ music book is directly translated onto a punch card compatible with a Jacquard Loom. This new punch card is then used to weave the fabric."
The book music is made from sheets of perforated thick cardboard lengths, which usually specify the notes to be played on the organ. Air passing through these holes determines the notes generated from the organ pipes.
When the sheets are fed in to the mechanical loom, hooks drop through the holes to change the direction of the threads and create a pattern that is determined by the song.
The studio worked with weaver Wil van den Broek and master organ maker Leon van Leeuwen to produce the fabrics. The hues and type of yarn were chosen by Glithero and the colours reference the craftsmen's workshops.
Glithero will present the fabrics and a film installation of the weaving process in an exhibition entitled Made to Measure in Milan next week, situated at Via Privata Cletto Arrighi 19 in the Ventura Lambrate design district.
Photography is by Petr Krejčí.