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I Martha Gowans
‘I Martha Gowans,’ makes audible the choreography of labour that is written into the patent archive but nowhere made visible. Every patent contains instructions for the labouring bodies and machines that are used in production. This performance is an experiment in reading the rhythmical information contained in patents, it is based on the choreography of labour that is written into the archive, but nowhere made explicit.
A series of translations formalise the work of invention into a patent, and then into production. The performance’I Martha Gowans’ is based on the patent Nº5835 filed by Martha Gowans in 1903 in Dundee. The patent is a design for a suspended pocket for working women. Around that time, women workers formed an important part of the industrial labour force but constrained to women’s clothing they lacked suitable pockets to hold the tools of the trade. Martha is one of several women inventors who invented suspended pockets to address this issue.
For the purpose of the performance, the fashion designer Ellen Fowles drew on Martha’s patent to create a sewing pattern. The sewing pattern contains rhythmic information, it contains a beat, fast long stretches, intimate details and textual information. For the performance we read the patterns as a notation and the composition is based on the pattern. The two sewing machine operator following the pattern and lead the performance in conversation with the composer. The voice performer improvises to the rhythm of the machines. A rearranged version of the original patent text, alongside the sewing pattern and a range of symbols commonly found on sewing patterns such as shorten, fuse, reduce, puncture or reinfore form the material for the voice improvisation.
I Martha Gowans (2022). Julien McHardy (concept, script), Nahuel Cano (concept, composition), Kat Jungnickel (research, operator), Margo van de Linde (voice), Emma Hoette (operator), Juan Fernández Gebauer (camera, montage).
Script: I Martha Gowans
I.
Pockets, for Personal Wear.
I, Martha Gowans, of 6 Whitehall Crescent, Dundee, in the county of Forfar, Scotland, Milliner, do hereby declare the nature of this invention to be as follows…
This invention relates to improvements in
Pockets
Office pockets
Factory pockets
Counter pockets
Pockets for personal wear
Pockets for holding or carrying implements necessary to the wearer’s calling or occupation.
Pockets… for carrying implements
A detachable appliance for the wearer’s occupation.
in mantle or millinery saloons,
In drapery establishments
In offices
or factories
A suspensory pocket… necessary to the wearers calling
I, Martha Gowans, hereby declare…
Smart, up to date saleswomen, clerkesses and the like… require a appliance to hold pencils, scissors, pincushion, knife and other tools.
For example,
In some cases,
saleswomen wear their scissors suspended
By an elastic band
A most dangerous proceeding
Scissors becoming entangled
striking the wearer when released
Accidents frequently occur
Pencils again…
Placed in the waist belt or hair
Pencils again…
Are lost
Or their points become broken
I make a suspensory pocket…
I declare that what I claim:
II.
It is to meet this want that I, Martha Gowans have invented…
It is to meet this want that I have invented… a suspensory pocket… at such a distance below the waist that the wearers hand can quite readily obtain any of the tools carried, without having to stop/ without having to stoop.
It is to meet this want that I have invented a series of pockets each of a width and depth suitable for the tool which is to be carried
I have invented… pockets which are intended for carrying sharp pointed instruments
I have invented the above…
A pincushion protected with a shield
in order that the points of the pins may not injure the wearer.
It is to meet this want that I have invented…
III.
I, Martha Gowans,
Require a convenient appliance to hold
Pencils
Scissors
Pincushions
A Knife
other necessary tools
Pencils again
Are lost in hair,
Pencils again, their points
Become broken.
I, Martha Gowans, make a suspensory pocket of suede
I make a pocket of linen
I make a pocket of American cloth
I make a pocket of velvet, of Italian cloth
Sateen, silk, satin…
I Martha, make a pocket of leather, metal or the like… with a suitable hook
a hook for engaging with the waist… belt
A series of pockets.
of a width and depth suitable for the tool
which is to be carried.
A series of pockets
of ordinary construction
except that in all cases
its backing consists
of some more or less
impenetrable substance
Such as metal or cardboard
With metallic sheaths.
Provided with protective sheath
Padded parts for pins
protected with a shield
IV.
Patent Nª 5835 A.D. 1903
Date of Application, 13th March, 1903
Complete Specification, 12th December, 1903
Accepted, 14th January, 1904
Provisional specification.
Complete specification.
This invention relates to
the Construction of
For example…
the above mentioned article
a convenient and unobtrusive appliance
And in order that
the manner of performing
or carrying the same into effect
may be properly understood
I have hereunto appended
an explanatory sheet of drawings
reference numerals are used to indicate corresponding parts in all the figures, that is to say
- Figure 1. Is a face view of the appliance and
- Figure 2 a sectional elevation at A.A. (Figure 1.)
In connection with and part of the lower extremity, a series of pockets 5
Having now particularly described and ascertained
I declare that what I claim:
…as described and illustrated on the drawings annexed.
This drawing is a reproduction of the original on a reduced scale.
Photo-litho Malby & Sons
Dated this 11th day of December 1903.
Agents for the applicant.
George C Douglas & Co,
Chartered patent agent
41 reform street, Dundee
Printed for His Majety’s Stationery Office by Love & Malcomson.
Performing the Archive: Reflections on ‘I Martha Gowans’
Kat Jungnickel & Julien McHardy
The layout of the text was spatial, social, inviting – formed/ held the group – in silence
While the text did not make it into the final piece it helped to form the group – reinforced shared understanding of the point/ purpose of the day/ Stay true to the text
We reduced, amplified, montage and deletion, repetition of key words – I, Martha Gowans….. I have invented, …… pockets. “Take this piece and sculpt it so it fits through the mouth”. Tried to disentangle diff discourses of the document – personal, problem, solution, technical
The bureaucratic reduction of ideas hasn’t totally erased the personal – we see and hear Martha Gowans, what was important to her, what she wanted to change, how she envisioned this change. When J theorises, he feels he has to add stuff to feel the substance or prove something, or build a machine. We paired it back to the material, bodies, interactions – scary and liberating. To trust that something will emerge in collaboration. To bring a frame, materials, people, disciplinary emotional orientation and share them
And trust that people with diff skills will do something together and something will emerge
It conflicts with desire to control, plan
Actually v liberating. Nahuel – will hear the dynamic range
J + K – read the text and image and see the discourses
Emma – held her body / grace/ focused tension –
Margot – could express verbally
We could all see, recognise and understand - complement these diff translation. All brought into the space – some words were given to it but mostly not what happens with translations
also about letting go. seeing translations = something new emerging and not trying to match it to expectations just let it be there embodied knowledge can conflict with ideas of control
also interesting in relation to shared embodied knowledge – shared bodies learning and making together
Drama, affect
satisfying to be carried by a beat and cinematic graphic,density, emotional scape, long for it and distrust it it moved from being dry and dramatic. smiling. could feel it and see it on people faces and in bodies. this is good or this is true. blissful broad smiles, collective feelings. what happens in this moment – when you feel held, when beauty is emerging. Emotions mark ontological ruptures
(used in EM paper). What happens when this feeling of harmony emerges – a landmark – feeling of falling into place. To do with rhythm also
For things to goon long enough for parts that don’t work or are useless, then there is density, then things fall into place or can be given more shape later – improvisations. Constraints. When too much flexibility can be limiting – need edges/ scripts/ constrains so freedom is possible
When Nahuel said Margot needed more constrains to be free. What is this for? Free-ing to not have this be for anyone. Yet the camera gave it gravitas, seriousness. Experimentation – learn things in the moment. Discipline – not really a thing
Everyone at ease. Seemed natural that everyone had a set of skills, overlaps, but not regulated/defined. Acceptance of diff skills at diff points. Not articulated, problemed. A naturalised condition.
Ideas: Of making martha’s voice emerge. How dd this happen? Why? Was this organised? Was this something that we just did. We all agreed - to bring out her voice. Hysteria: When Margo used the cultural repertoire. Does this recreate and change the data/ story/ what this person was or could be? Transmissions: In this kind of performative work, you work with performers in similar way to the audience. You have to figure out how to transit something for both. A lot of the work is similar – Event – we are seeing what can be draw from a patent, and in relation to who is here. We invite you to come with us on this exploration we don’t know what will happen, or how it will flow
Creates the gaze, is the gaze, becomes the audience,
Focuses attention. wants certain things. Creates temporal edges
Steals shots, makes frames. Requires repeats, transforms players into actors to repeat, deliver emotional labour
The relationship is reversed – from respectful observer to becoming demanding -0 do it again, get louder/softer, Stretches where things develop or don’t work so well. The idea that sewing machines had long intro
Created a logic for things to flow from rather than create competition. Nahuel nerded out on dynamic range of sewing machines, as if they have infinite range and vcal capacity
Does text have this? A more normalised volume? But they get edited, to tighten, adjust. We needed some times when things didn’t work. We did this in perf, live, to create space for things to happen, for improvisation
Working on the machines
Solidarity. global machine. Incredibly responsive, to the point that it sometimes responded to things I didn’t expect, my foot was having these communications with the machines that surprised me. Three things: my intention, the machine responding and then another element, the surprise. The machine wasn’t doing things without me, I was involved but sometimes I wasn’t completely in control of it. (That moment when the machine did klick klack when Kat go put and everybody was laughing).
So interactive. My knee. I was sitting to low, I would have used a cushion to saw properly. I was also aware of the power of it, because it goes so fast, the danger of it, because it was unfamiliar. I was directing the sawing, but also the way Nahuel was responding to me, and I was also responding to Margo but she was also responding to me and the machine, and I found that really exciting, but it also required lot of energy, which meant my sawing went a bit rubbish because normally my sawing gets all the attention, because a mixed choreography of the machine, material, body and other players, and the sound. I like thinking about the sawing machine as a musical instrument. We were thinking about that in the poplar anyway because we have such a different sonic footprint compared to everyone around us, because we’re sandwiched by politics (scholars) and we have three machines running at the same time. But here they took on a different musical range, as a player, in an ensemble.
I listed to it in relation to other sounds. It was part of this composition. In a way that was quite deliberate and organised, structured by both the pattern in front of us, but also in relation to the happenings. Multiple readings at once: reading the fabric that was reading the pattern, and in a multidimensional sense, reading the room, and other people. I felt that I was part of the conducting but also being conducted and in that way it felt like an ensemble. And having Emma. Having the two sewing machines together, I was quite delighted, they worked together and in tandem but also as complementary instruments. And at that speed we ended up staying with, we didn’t really oscillate the speed, which we didn’t - we could have been more ambitions with what the machines could do, we stuck with three modes - the sewing speed, the clanking, the lifting of the foot, putting the heel back was the clanking noise, the knee was the lift and the pivot, so the needle would remain in the fabric, and the knee lifted, and pivot and paused to reset again. And then we start again. Sometimes however, if you leant slightly forward then it reversed, because of the sensitivity of the pedal.
At the end of the performance, either I didn’t look at Emma, or she didn’t look at me, but she felt what I was going to do anyhow, so there was something about this connectivity that comes from learning in an orchestra, because you know something is about to happen, because of a silence or beat that you play with. And the arrangement of the players was quite, not that there was any conductor, but we were in an ensemble orientation in this space. Actually a sewing circle could be like that too. We were just communicating differently.
How do you come to these conclusions, of how to setup a space?
Two sewing machines. At first she [Emma] was the only one I really looked at, because I was trying to doing the sewing, and looking at Emma, trying to become comfortable with the choreography that was emerging. We didn’t start with a certain choreography. We started together a sophisticated non-verbal communication with the group. Maybe that’s what everybody started to feel.
-> we let the machines run together for a long stretch first, because that felt right. Now, that was the moment when then machines/operators established the emerging choreography. This was the moment of tuning.
The joy when things align, into harmony. The joy when things contrast.
We fell into a phrasing that makes sense. Again that wasn’t articulated, because the pieces of pattern did that, because before I didn’t know how this was going to work, but then we came together… And then it was just so easy. If we hadn’t felt that early on, it might have been quite stressful. They didn’t bang. They came together. All these elements of music and manufacture came together and that surprise was kinda delightful and made it kinda easy. And then we were just playing. It was also nice to see Juan’s delight, when he get caught in the moment. People were skilful and respectful.