All commercially produced silk textiles originate in the bodies of silkworms. Every year, billions of these creatures are raised to produce all of the silk required by textile industries.
This piece celebrates these insects and is composed of recordings made during their short life cycle. Silkworm larvae hatch from eggs laid by an adult silkmoth. Each of these eggs is the size of a poppy seed. In the next four to six weeks the larvae grow to around three inches in length. To grow at such an amazing rate the silkworms require constant feeding. Silkworms only eat leaves from the mulberry tree. They convert nutrients from these leaves into liquid protein which they store in their bodies. When they are ready, they begin turning this liquid into silk. The silk emerges from glands beside their mouths they use it to spin themselves a cocoon. Each cocoon is made of a single thread of raw silk, which is three hundred to nine hundred metres long. 

Throughout August 2014, Felicity Ford raised a colony of sixty silkworms. This piece is composed from recordings of this colony devouring mulberry leaves and spinning cocoons. The sound of the silkworms eating grows louder as they grow and their jaws get bigger. Towards the end you can hear the silkworms making their cocoons. They create them inside small cardboard tubes, and you can clearly hear the silkworms straining against their own silk threads during this process.

Sound sources

young larvae (two to three weeks old) eating mulberry leaves
ambient living room sounds from the room where the silkworms were raised
older larvae (four to five weeks old) eating mulberry leaves
silkworms making cocoons inside cardboard tubes and straining against the silk threads
the sounds of heater in the room where the silkworms were raised

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Thomas May at the silkwormstore.com for email support, and to Elaine Stobo and Viv Canning for supplying mulberry leaves for the hungry colony.


01. KNITSONIK AKA Felicity Ford - Listening to Silkworms

Our Sonic Trails are pieces of sound art, they let you listen to recordings and compositions created by artists. Some allow you to experience somewhere entirely different to your surroundings, like the clicks and songs of whales and other under water animals while you’re walking through the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern or a choir singing in the Duveen galleries at Tate Britain. Some allow you to imagine the process that went into making a sculpture and some uncover hidden sounds which can normally only be heard at night. 