Euphonious Raincoats v.3 mushroomy

design residency, lottozero, apr - may 2024

v3. mushroomy, sonic diary

The surface has a brushed feel underhand. As I squeeze it the structure feels rubber-ish; there is a little resistance, a bounce back. This resilience is masked by its deceptive delicate brushed surface. It reminds me of a mushroom. It seems fitting to bring the raincoat mushroom picking with me.

I take the tram to the edge of the forest. It starts to rain. I’m feeling quite smug with the dulcet tones of my ensemble. The rain pools a little on top. It hovers waiting to roll off or evaporate, whichever comes first. The fabric remains soft, unlike the stiffened leafy version. The sound is therefore dampened in comparison to its predecessors. A plonk that dissipates. It is certainly the quietest of all the raincoats. The least interfering with ambient sounds of the forest. A gentle bassline that harmonises with the crunch of the moss underfoot, the rustling leaves overhead, the trickling stream alongside, the birds chirping all around. With the hood up these melodies are toned down but pellucid. I can hear clearly when my comrades shout to alert me that they have discovered an untouched bounty of chanterelles. I stagger through brambles. My sleeves glide gently along them. No snagging. Not the jarring scratching that I become accustomed to. I crouch down to harvest the golden heads poking through the earth. The vent allows the coat to elegantly splay around me, much like the cap of a mushroom. It keeps me and my patch dry as I set to work. 

The amiability of this raincoat encourages me to continue foraging for another three hours. By this time the fabric has begun to absorb the rain. The fabric doesn’t stiffen, but by the time I get home and peel it off, damp patches have appeared on the shoulders of my t-shirt underneath. The rain has begun to soak through. The mushroomy version is an affable companion, but perhaps only for short rainy adventures.

project background

In my PhD research the jarring sonic experience of plastic raincoats was frequently presented as a contributor to sensory distress by my autistic research participants: the squeak of the sweaty plastic, arms swinging side by side, the tap tap tap of rain bouncing off the hood, drowning out the surrounding soundscape of nature and all its nourishing sensory inputs.

During my one month design residency at Lottozero textile laboratories, supported by Culture Moves Europe, I explored alternatives to the sonic dissonance of petroleum based fibers used in rainwear. The goal of this design experiment was to craft sonic experiences that are more in harmony with nature as the body moves through the wet landscape, e.g. the sound of rustling leaves overhead, the soft crunch of damp ground underfoot. I developed several wax raincoats that each composed a different symphony as the wearer moves and the rain descends. 

Back in Norway, through the generous support of Trondheim kommune kunst og kultur, I worked with sound engineer Mona Hynne, from Øra Studio, to capture the composition of each iteration. Each recording follows a similar script: dressing in the coat as the rain begins to fall, the clash of the moving body and rain colliding, the dampening (materially and sonically) over extended use, and finally how the hood sharpens the rhythm of the rain and dims the outside world.