mutable bodies #2: matted object

mixed media installation

first iteration: Sporobole, Sherbrooke, 2023

To make pressed felt—often thought of as one of the world’s oldest fabrics—tufts of wool are slowly compressed together using heat and moisture. Over time, the process causes the fibres themselves to become interlocked, forming a single, matted fabric.

mutable bodies #2: matted object uses sound and movement to consider this system of slow, entangled labour. In it, multiple small loudspeakers, hanging encased in layers of industrial felt, emit delicate noises. The felt—which is frequently used today as an acoustic treatment for indoor spaces—dampens and filters the sounds produced by the loudspeakers inside. Over time, motors tease apart the felt and reposition the loudspeakers to face open air, laying their sounds and inner workings visually and sonically bare.

As in the irreversible process of felt-making itself, the workings of the small, the hidden, and the quiet here are shaped by systems of labour and loss. Though the loudspeakers and felt work to disentangle themselves from one another, there is no possibility of resolution—their shifting relationships only serving to reveal the messy, contingent nature of the sounds they create.