Stepping into the studio of the Brazilian-born artist and performer Lisa Simpson – no relation to the cartoon character – feels like entering a crossover between the Mad Hatter’s workshop and a postindustrial steampunk landscape with a colourful girl-power twist. The ground floor space in Berlin’s southern district of Neukölln is filled with shelves laden with old sewing machines and coat racks brimming with hats, bags and fabric scraps. Even more sewing machines propped on two tables might suggest that this is a tailor’s workshop, were it not for the tangle of cables and synthesisers connected to them. Toy sewing machines in candy colours have a purple phone receiver attached; colourful cables with knitted covers sneak out of household sewing machines and seam overlockers; pins and needles are connected to microphones.
Some of Simpson’s sewing machines really are used for sewing, but most of them are living a second life as musical instruments. Having spent years teaching herself basic engineering, she is converting them to synthesiser-like devices for live performance. “It started with toy sewing machines,” she says. “I always thought they were so pretty – but they were impractical for actual sewing. So I started putting oscillators and sensors inside them to use them for sound-making. Then a few years ago, I started putting electronics into a household sewing machine and it has become a sort of synthesiser.”
