In The Future, You'll Wear Cassette Tapes

I have to admit it, even though I own an Ipod and use it religiously, I still enjoy pulling out my old records and cassette tapes and turning up the volume. Even better, I enjoy traveling to the city's used record shops and picking up new (old) records and cassette tapes. Ah, the warmth of analog, I just can't get enough.

Brooklyn artist (and 3r Living friend) Alyce Santoro has a completely different vision for old cassette tapes. When she looks at a collection of dusty old Bon Jovi gems, she sees the raw material for a new batch of Sonic Fabric . What's Sonic Fabric? Invented in 2001 as a byproduct of one of her art projects, Sonic Fabric is an amazing, shiny cloth made from recycled cassette tape which can be turned into anything from messenger bags to dresses. As an added bonus, after a little experimentation, Alyce discovered that she could take a modified Walkman and "play" the fabric (it sort of makes a "wooshing" sound). Try that with your favorite organic cotton jeans! (Here's a hint, it won't work.)

Anyway, I could go on and on about how Alyce has combined artistic vision and creative recycling to create beautiful pieces of functional art, but the best thing to do is to show you some photos and this amazing Japanese Television video featuring Alyce, Sonic Fabric and 3r Living . It's probably a pretty informative piece if you speak Japanese, but if you don't speak the language, you'll still get the idea.

Sonic Fabric Tell-Tail Thangka (Tibetan Prayer Flag) available here and here .

Sonic Fabric FishFlag - These flags are made from sonic fabric prerecorded with the custom sound collage made for Jon Fishman's (of Phish) Sonic Rhythm Dress.