no.230 | Cicada Song of Self
New PSO Radio! Plus the Intersections of Weaving, Music, and the Digital
"On time, as anticipated, they have returned, tunneling into view, leaving their sooty signature. Pale in the sudden light, they fan and flutter their wings. It’s time to sing. Me, they sing. Me, again."
Parul Sehgal in this week's New Yorker compares the singular cicada song to the plight and felt obligation of the serial memoirist. PSO is most often made with nature’s accompaniment and this week offers a contemplative tune of a longer duration, leaving much time and space for said beloved insect’s "full-throated song of the self" during these times of "tribulation, of molting, of transformation."
The image lends a hint of the team colors of Independence Day. More crimson, perhaps than red, but so goes the timbre of the times.
PSO will be taking a little break in July, but, never fear, you can now listen to the…
BRAND NEW PORCH SWING ORCHESTRA RADIO!!!
For the first time, you can see and listen to randomly accessed PSO pieces anywhere you can connect to the internet. There are no ads, tracking, or likes, just like listening to the radio.
ADD PSO RADIO SHORT CUT ON YOUR PHONE
Create a handy thumbnail for your phone, so it works like an app…I find this very fun. Hat tip to Gregory Brooks for the suggestion!
For Chrome/Android:
Open a webpage in Chrome.
Tap the three-dot icon in the upper right.
Find and select “Add to Home screen” from the menu.
You can change the shortcut’s name in the pop-up that appears, then tap “Add.”
Select “Add to home screen” to add the icon to the next open spot, or tap and hold the icon and drag it to your desired location on the home screen.
For iPhone/Safari
Launch Safari on your iOS device.
Go to the website you want to save to your home screen.
Tap the Share icon.
Select Add to Home Screen.
On this page, give a desired name to the website and tap Add to make a Home Screen shortcut.
RECOMMENDED WEAVING, LISTENING, AND LOOKING
Between Systems and Grounds
Paula Matthusen and Olivia Valentine
Visual Artist Robin Kang
Folks in France have been programming looms since 1745. In 1804, Joesph-Marie Jacquard created near photographic patterns with movable punch cards. Ada Lovelace would use these precepts in her invention of computer programming as applied to Charles Babbage’s proposed Analytical Engine. Lovelace foresaw applications for programming way beyond just number crunching; she believed even music could be created via programming!
Composer Paula Matthusen and visual artist Olivia Valentine’s ongoing project Between Systems and Grounds is a deep exploration of translation and transformation of pattern and programming and can be seen as a direct manifestation of Lovelace’s visionary prediction.
<<between systems and grounds>> began as a slowly evolving collaboration in 2015 between composer Paula Matthusen and visual artist Olivia Valentine with a desire to have their seemingly disparate practices speak to one another. This improvisatory framework began with lacemaking and acoustic feedback generation in 2016. Olivia Valentine’s acquisition of an AVL CompuDobby Loom in 2018 enabled the development of audio-responsive software to influence and create patterns woven by hand on the loom. Simultaneously, the duo developed an audio synthesis program that could be triggered by the patterns and actions of the loom, forming a slow feedback loop in which process and artifact are interwoven. —from their Bandcamp Page
They even have a radio stream!
Hat tip to M of This is Index (who designed their Cassette Packaging, also recommended).
This week PSO collaborator and amazing artist Tamara Gonzales forwarded me an invitation to a mixer and talk of Robin Kang at Soho House in Austin. Kang uses a digital loom to create handmade, intricately beautiful images of circuit boards, chips, and all manner of wizardry. The work is as smart as it is beautiful. Kang is scheduled to have a show of this work in Austin at Big Medium in January of 2025.
At her talk, I learned that early computer memory was woven by women.
One type of woven memory, core rope memory, was nicknamed “LOL memory,” where LOL stood for the "Little Old Ladies" who assembled it. They were supervised by “rope mothers,” who were often males. But the rope mothers’ boss was a woman named Margaret Hamilton. (from Amusing Planet)
Another deep practice of translation takes place in the Iranian provinces of Isfahan, Kerman, and Fars, where weavers use a call-and-response technique called Naqshe Khani or Pattern Singing to make elaborate and complex rugs. One woman sings the patterns while others translate the phrases/instructions to patterned thread.
from Woman Interwoven.
PSO PODCAST
Thanks for listening + looking! See you later this summer!!
this is so interesting!