Sound to Wear is an educational set of experiential body-based tools for listening and sounding practicesThe educational set of sound-tools is one of the outcomes of the doctoral research Wearing Sound: Foundations of Sonic Design (2020). The tools are body-based objects, and could be considered to be ‘object- stimulators’—objects that generate ideas. The tools are complex material-discursive apparatuses assembled from everyday objects and centred on two main practices: (i) listening and (ii) sounding. The set of tools is arranged into a sequence for working with sonic materials that begins with ‘ear cleaning’—introducing, activating and shifting the focus from visual to sonic experience—and continues with idea-generation in relation to designing with sound.

Fashion is primarily a visual ontology consisting of definitions, theory, and methods that are based on visual language. My research revises fashion by approaching it from a different-sonic-perspective wherein sound is considered not as a negative aspect but as a potential source of a new theory and method. Sound is presented not as a secondary quality of designed objects, but as the main idea-generator. An investigation into sonic expressions is seen as a disruptive fashion practice and could be described as a process of unlearning – encouraging one to leave behind pre-existing knowledge of fashion expressions by focusing on something else when defining and designing. The research addressed a gap in knowledgethrough the Sonic Fashion Ontology, which constitutes new, foundational knowledge of sonicexpression. The research findings challenge existing theory with new terms, definitions, methods, and tools, and show the importance of understanding fashion as a platform for new knowledge production and critical thinking, along with unlearning and rethinking preconceptions of what dress is and could be. 

Experimental artefacts are central to my research as they are intended to generateideas and design methods, which were developed within embodied sound practices. In myresearch, the artefact suggests the direction of a proposed programme and methods for de-signing sonic expressions. The knowledge of sonic form and expression is explored and developed through the research artefacts. The research artefacts inspired thought processes and resulted in an alternative theoretical approach. The artefacts are considered not as design products themselves, but as ‘research archetypes’ (Wensveen and Matthews, 2015, p. 8) and ‘evocative objects’ (Su and Liang, 2013, p. 612; Turkle, 2007, p. 71). The research artefacts, such as the sound-tools (Sound to Wear) are the intermediary knowledge, the ‘bridging concepts’ (Dalsgaard and Dindler, 2014, p. 1635) that connect the embodied sound practices and theory. They exist ‘midway’ between instances and theories, intermediate knowledge that captures and materializes thinking.