Chicks on Speed

Formed in Munich in 1997, Chicks on Speed are a multi-disciplinary art collective who look to apply their DIY and punk ethics to performance art and crafts. Demonstrating their commitment to producing forward thinking pieces of work, Chicks on Speed form collaborations with both local and international artists and makers to combine traditional craft with cutting-edge technology.

Last year Dundee Contemporary Arts, with the help of investment from Creative Scotland's Crafts programme, hosted the collective’s first major solo exhibition in the UK. Titled Don’t Art, Fashion, Music the exhibition showcased a number of highly innovative craft pieces - including amongst others the E-shoe, the Theremin Tapestry and the Cigar Box Synth.

Chicks on Speed’s Objekt Instruments incorporate elements of craft, music, visual art and fashion in order to create something entirely new.

“Our Objekt Instruments come out of the desire to radicalise the readymade, through the hand made. To change the way people look at everyday objects in relation to art, music and fashion, but also to see them as proposals for mass production.” -  Alex Murray-Leslie, Chicks on Speed

The E-shoe

The world’s first wireless high-heeled shoe guitar, the E-shoe took three years to complete and was made in collaboration with Siberian-born shoe designer Max Kibardin and Spanish visual art centre the Hangar.  

Originally conceived as a shoe that could function as an electric guitar the concept evolved considerably over the course of it’s development. From the outset the collective agreed that it must still be able to function as a piece of footwear and that the design should look visually pleasing.

“They have to work visually, like beautifully crafted jewellery. The craft is as just as important as the sounds they make, that’s how we feel about everything we do.” - Alex Murray-Leslie, Chicks on Speed

In order for the shoe to generate sounds, a custom built circuit board was developed to connect to a wireless midi device that responded to a performer’s movements around the stage. The midi signals are then transmitted to a laptop which triggers guitar samples during the performance.

Theremin Tapestry

The Theremin Tapestry is an instrument the collective developed that’s based on the original theremin made by Léon Theremin. It combines the traditional art of weaving with one of the world’s most unique sounding instruments.

Seven weavers from the Victorian Tapestry Workshop in Melbourne were employed to combine traditional materials with conductive copper threads woven at specific intervals throughout the tapestry. The copper threads were then connected to theremin hardware developed by Andre Smirnov at the Theremin Institute in Moscow.

The finished instrument allows performers to produce sounds by interacting with but not touching the tapestry, creating a highly visual and unique sounding performance.

The Cigar Box Orchestra & Other Objekt Instruments

The Cigar Box Synth was the first instrument that Chicks on Speed developed. Much like the E-shoe it has also evolved over time from a very basic noise generator to a fully functioning synthesiser. They now perform with 10 Cigar Box Synths as the Cigar Box Orchestra.

Some of the other highly innovative instruments Chicks on Speed demonstrated and performed with at the DCA showcase included: super suits with sewn-in body sensors that trigger audio/video samples and hats they'd made based on illuminated drawings of Hildegard von Bingen - a 12th century Christian mystic. The hats transmit the utterances of their wearers by way of microphones and speakers.

Chicks on Speed core members are Melissa Logan and Alex Murray-Leslie. Collaborators include Merche Blasco, Anat Ben-David, Nadine Jessen, Krõõt Juurak, Kathi Glas, Peggy Noland, Ari Fish, Michael Conrads, Steve Dawson, A.L. Steiner, Oliver Hawton, Gianluca Turini, Hangar.org, Jano and Diego del Lion. 

A book, titled Chicks on Speed: Don’t Art, Fashion, Music (Booth-Clibborn) documenting the thinking and processes behind their self made ojeckt Instruments and the exhibition at the DCA was published in September 2010.

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