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1 2 array special 2017/2018 Christopher Haworth, editor Jen Wang, designer Contents The International Computer Music Association Letter from the Guest Editors...... 5 Patricia Alessandrini & Shelly Knotts Officers President (interim): Tae Hong Park Not All Ideas are the Same...... 7 Vice President for Membership: Michael Gurevitch Patricia Alessandrini Vice President for Conferences: Rob Hamilton Pauline Oliveros at ICMC Re-Visited: Technology and the Self ...... 15 Vice President for Asia/Oceania: - Maria Chavez & Seth Cluett Vice President for the Americas: Eric Honour Vice President for Europe: Stephania Serafin Featured Article: Notating electronics ...... 20 Vice President for Preservation: Tae Hong Park Cat Hope Music Coordinator: PerMagnus Lindborg Research Coordinator: Christopher Haworth Conversation I: Muyassar Kurdi & Verónica Mota...... 27 Array Editor: Christopher Haworth Marlo DeLara Publications Coordinator: Tom Erbe Artists Statements I:...... 37 Treasurer/Secretary: Chryssie Nanou Nur Eram Board of Directors 2018 Sisters Akousmatica At-Large Directors Emah Fox Miriam Akkermann Conversation II: Rebecca Fiebrink & Laetitia Sonami...... 53 Mark Ballora Patricia Alessandrini John Thompson Americas Regional Directors Artists Statements II:...... 60 Eric Honour Mari Kimura Charles Nichols Paula Matthusen Asia/Oceania Regional Directors Silvia Rosani Takeyoshi Mori Europe Regional Directors Conversation III: Pamela Z & Atau Tanaka...... 69 Stefania Serafin Arshia Cont Artists Statements III:...... 76 Joanne Armitage Non-Elected Positions Amble Skuse ICMA Administrative Assistant: Sandra Neal Annie Goh Review: Is Marcus Schmickler’s Palace of Marbles a Radical Political Album?....90 Robin Buckley

3 4 array special Letter from the Guest Editors Patricia Alessandrini & Shelly Knotts 2010/20112017/2018 one-day symposium entitled Taking statements address individual approaches representation, interpretation, Space: Women in Electronic at Durham to computer music and include live perception and memory. She performs Letter from the Guest Editors University bringing together a cross- coding, electronica, radio transmission, research on embodied interaction, by Patricia Alessandrini & Shelly section of female sound artists based in installation work, and other genres. including instrument design for inclusive We also included three conversation Knotts the north of the UK to discuss their work, performance. She was recently appointed practice and perspectives on the field. transcripts using a non-hierarchical Associate Professor at Stanford University Instrumental in the direction of the issue approach to interrogate diverse This issue of ICMA Array focusses on / the Center for Computer Research in was the roundtable discussion which took perspectives on working practices, in practice-based perspectives in electronic Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). place at this event, where we discussed addition to features and reviews. The first and computer music through the lens of going beyond individual ‘female role of these is a tribute to Pauline Oliveros, intersectional feminism and a generally Shelly Knotts explores interaction with models’ and ‘pioneers’ and considered to whom this issue of Array is dedicated, inclusive outlook. It features artists and through algorithms through projects structural changes needed to develop a from two artists who worked closely with from six continents, as well as work involving live coding, computer networks gender-balanced field where the work of her, Maria Chavez and Seth Cluett. which is not generally considered as and data sonification. Her work often has women is considered on equal standing the mainstream in academic computer At a point in time where the importance political motivations, exploring the shifting to the work of men. We discussed how music – such as electronica and DIY of inclusiveness in computer music dynamics of collaboration when mediated – as well as involving more women in approaches – alongside some of the is gradually being acknowledged, we by layers of computer technology and organisational and managerial capacities leading voices in the field. hope this issue shines a light on the algorithmic process. In early 2017 she – this may include expanding definitions underrepresented voices; beyond this was Leverhulme Artist-in-Residence In order to ensure the issue reflected and broadening the type of work which is goal, we set out to challenge the field at Newcastle University, School of current concerns among female accepted as the mainstream of computer to progress in accepting more diverse Chemistry, and she is currently a Research computer musicians and other under- music. Part of our approach here has perspectives on what it means to make Fellow at Monash University, Melbourne, represented groups in the field, we been to directly address this, by seeking to music with digital technology. We set out working on the project ‘Improvisational sought to gather perspectives from represent the diversity of approaches to a vision of the future of computer music, Interfaces’. Her music is available from those around us working on these music-making explored by women, which which as well as moving forwards, also Fractal Meat and Chordpunch labels. issues in the UK prior in addition to may currently be underrepresented in the expands outwards to people and practices distributing an international call. This field. at the fringes of the field, and re-centres [1] Sonic Cyberfeminisms was convened involved attending events such as Sonic In addressing the breadth of practice in and renews itself around and through by Dr Marie Thompson, University Cyberfeminisms in Lincoln [1] and the field we include writing in a number these practices. Lincoln, & Annie Goh. participating in the organisation of of formats. Nine artist statements emerged Women in Sound/Women on Sound [2] WISWOS was founded by Dr from the open call that we publicised Patricia Alessandrini is a composer/ (WISWOS) – London [2] events at Linda O’Keefe. Its London branch was internationally. Through this open call, sound artist creating compositions, Goldsmiths and the Activating Inclusive coordinated by Dr Lisa Busby, 2015-17. we intended to highlight work created by installations, and performance situations Sound Spaces (AISS) symposium [3] The AISS symposium team was led women and gender non-binary artists, and which are for the most part multimedia at Huddersfield [3]. We also ran a by Dr Elizabeth Dobson, who is also the work which addresses power relationships and interactive. Through these works, she founder of the Yorkshire Sound Women and gender-related oppression both within engages with questions of Network the field and in society at large. These

55 66 array special Not All Ideas Are The Same Patricia Alessandrini 2017/2018 of workplace harassment, while socially This dissemination of prejudice and fired the memo’s author for ‘championing and politically committed researchers and misinformation profited cultural scientific research’. Critics were on the Not All Ideas Are The Same: creatives such as Luke DuBois massively hegemony by shifting the discourse defensive, charged with the obligation Challenging dominant shared take-downs of it, including an rightward, comfortably away from to ‘wrestle’ with its content, thereby discourses and re-imaging excellent piece by Yonatan Zunger, the consideration of means to necessitating a wave of articles setting computer music research himself a former senior Googler. achieve political and social justice, the record straight, by reaffirming the such as reparations or fundamental cultural causes [7], recounting women’s That night, I went to bed hopeful that by Patricia Alessandrini redistribution of institutional roles in historical place in coding [8] and the shift the memo might serve as a means of the cases of post-colonial relations and from female to male labour [9] parallel bringing the problem of workplace At the time I am writing this, it has discriminatory hiring and workplace to gains in renumeration and status [10], discrimination and harassment to the been just over a month since the practices respectively. This example of and debunking the memo’s pseudo- fore - as unfortunate as it was that Google infamous ‘Google manifesto’ leaked the formation of hegemonic discourse science [11]. It was arguably useful to employees needed to experience it in [1], so the first reactions to it are provides a cautionary example for our have these social and historical points re- order for that conversation to happen still fresh in my mind. The leaking own technological field of how discourses affirmed - although none of this was new - and maybe even lead to questioning of this ‘bizarre and offensive’ [2] contributing to discrimination are re- information - but I found this last point widely-held misconceptions about memo served as a cruel example of produced – consciously or unconsciously exhausting: the memo was ‘an exercise coding, its history and its requisite skills, workplace harassment, posing the risk – in institutions, ultimately determining not in rational argument but in rhetorical just as Zunger and others were doing. of discouraging recruitment of women not only who performs research, but what point scoring’ [12], yet mainstream ‘Not all ideas are the same, and not all and other underrepresented groups in research is performed. The careful re- discourse clamoured for engagement conversations about ideas even have tech fields and further undermining consideration of discourse and rejection with it as ‘science’, and researchers felt basic legitimacy’, Zunger wrote: surely, I these efforts by shifting the discourse of received notions will provide the compelled to answer. thought, a society with ‘innovation’ and from how to achieve equity to, literally, basis to critique insufficient strategies for ‘thinking outside the box’ as watchwords As I obsessively combed through these whether humans are even equal. achieving equality and equity in favour would not allow itself to be trolled into responses, I read a de-bunking of Simon Fortunately, however, the memo of a radical and intersectional approach. ignoring the widely-known social and Baron-Cohen’s study of newborns – was poorly written and its research This will frame an attempt - central to political causes of inequality in favour of widely cited for its pure, ‘pre-socialisation’ was transparently cherry-picked, this edition - to envision what an inclusive viewing it through the tiny, bizarre, largely status by psychological evolutionists – and the authors’ academic credentials field might look like if computer music discredited thought-box of 19th Century realised that I had already read about were falsified [3], and his links to the research were more successful in resisting evolutionary psychology. both the study and its debunking almost extreme-right were confirmed as he dominant discourses contributing to exactly seven years ago, in reviews of fell into their welcoming embrace: this Nevertheless, much as with ‘The Case exclusion and effecting structural change. Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender [13]. was not a formidable foe, and he and for Colonialism’ [4], a text full of Within a week of the leak, David Brooks To spare you this head-desk moment - his arguments were already discredited, inaccuracies, not fulfilling academic opined in the New York Times [5] that which I treated myself to not once, but or so it seemed in those first hours. standards for research, whose central Google’s CEO should resign, not because twice - suffice to say that the study could In my own social media ‘bubble’, arguments are widely rejected by he failed to significantly implement only have been credible if a robotic arm colleagues recounted their experiences experts in the field, received widespread diversity measures [6], but because he had had held the newborn, gently cradling its consideration in mainstream discourse.

77 8 array special Not All Ideas Are The Same Patricia Alessandrini 2017/2018 head while allowing it to incisively direct in the absence of recognition of social to define patterns of racism in the US that reproduce the hierarchisation of its gaze (as newborns are wont to do), factors [15]. The valuable questions in relation to eugenics, evolutionary ‘innate’ traits found in the Google memo, and other robotic arms had been used to raised by the memo were not scientific, psychology’s uncomfortable cousin. such as the devaluation of ‘empathy’ in manipulate an object and an adult human but about the sociology of technological Kendi draws a distinction between the tech workplace. Another common respectively, with said adult human having and scientific research: how did the male ‘segregationist’ racism, based on problem in discourse on equality is the no clue as to the baby’s gender, and/or supremacy theories of the Men’s Rights eugenicist beliefs of biological inequality, ‘lack of candidates’ argument, which shifts just rendered completely unconscious to Activist movement (MRA) take root and the racism of ‘assimilationist’ the problem of exclusion from institutions avert any risk of attracting the newborn’s among programmers and gamers; how scholars, who rejected notions of and hiring practices to women’s own self- attention. Furthermore, it is only relevant might neurosexism have led to a plethora biological inequality but maintained other selection: there isn’t much we can do, for anyone who thinks glancing at a of bizarre and discredited studies such as biased views about culture and behaviour, this argument claims, until we increase dangling mobile at one day old is more Baron-Cohen’s, or others which use the which still placed much of the onus of the numbers of women and other or less the equivalent of a PhD; ‘The placement of the urethra as an indicator societal change on Black communities underrepresented groups getting a tech Essential Difference’, no matter what of intellectual ability [16]; and how might [17]. Kendi defines racism ‘as any idea education, and socialisation prevents happens after. ‘It’s Science’, titled an this research be different if the relevant that suggests a racial group is inferior or us from doing this. This is, of course, enthusiastic op-ed response to the memo, fields were more inclusive in terms superior to another racial group in any not entirely false, but its perniciousness as if all scientific studies are necessarily of gender and race? These questions way’ [18], and challenges the fundamental is nonetheless apparent, as it becomes objective and true. can be usefully applied to computer- racism of received notions: ‘Black an excuse to displace institutional music research as well: to what degree neighborhoods are not more dangerous responsibility to achieve equality. It erases What was missing was a critical do ideologies of male supremacy and than white neighborhoods and neither are the reality of institutional hostility and investigation of science as a subjective neurosexism influence our institutions, black people’ [19]. exclusion by failing to acknowledge the human endeavour, subject to institutional and how would the research we produce circularity of rejection and self-selection. pressure and ideological bias, determined Applying this theory to the questions be transformed by achieving greater It is also, for the most part, patently by political imperatives and dominant of gender raised by the Google memo, inclusivity: is there research - including false: in most cases, recruitment does narratives: the kind of analysis provided we can find examples of the shifting of practice-based – which might be more not match the candidate base, due to by Fine’s theories of neurosexism or sexist ideology from notions of biological fully explored if those conducting it were unconscious bias, discriminatory practices, Judy Wajcman’s feminist critiques of superiority to behavioural and other not marginalised? and/or failure to reach out to potential technology [14]. This literature is part bias, and challenge the received notions candidates. This is illustrated by Google’s of larger political context: letting alt- While we clearly have fundamental which are defensively recycled in order own recruitment: despite their supposed right Google guy frame the conversation problems with white cis male hegemony, to explain the tech gender gap. The ‘diversity’ efforts, they disproportionally allowed transphobic, heteronormative it is fair to say that the kind of MRA ‘faux feminism’ of ‘Lean in’ [20] culture hire men relative to the number of definitions of gender as a birth- propaganda found in the Google memo contributes to sexist ideology, as it implies qualified female candidates; according determined binary and narrow, ableist is not given mainstream support by our that exclusion does not exist, but rather to statistical evidence [21], the memo’s notions of innate ability to form the basis institutions. I would place our discourse that key roles for women are ready for author was most likely hired in the place of its discourse, a set-back from both the problem elsewhere, and to make that the taking, if only we are ‘willing’. It also of a better-qualified female candidate, growing acceptance of gender fluidity distinction, I will adopt by analogy validates modes of behaviour associated thanks to institutional sexism. No wonder and increasing awareness of the failure categories developed by author and with male hegemony as preferable to he spent his evenings contributing to its of standardised testing to detect potential historian Dr Ibram Kendi in his efforts female-assigned behavioural traits in ways 9 10 array special Not All Ideas Are The Same Patricia Alessandrini 2017/2018 greater glory: as a man with questionable or not - the institutional racism and the gender gap in education. The decline inclusive community. The practice-based qualifications, his very survival in the field sexism of academia, as there are only 95 of racism, sexism and other forms of research we are presenting here is, for relies upon it. professors who identify as Black in the oppression in the societies in which we live the most part, hardly marginal, but by UK, and only 17 among them as female and work has not necessarily progressed putting it together in one place, in a rare Here we begin to touch on modes of [22], [23]. Thus, criteria that may seem linearly; waiting for this change is therefore simultaneity of predominantly female discourse which are all too common in ‘objective’ are tainted, and adjustments once again both a displacement of authors, with significant contributions our field, in particular the ‘We contacted must be made in recognition of this fact. institutional responsibility and a denial of from under-represented identifications someone but she couldn’t come, that’s Discrimination may also be re-produced social and political realities. within the field and a modest attempt, why we only have white male keynotes/ by selection methodologies, such as the at least, at geographical diversity, we panelists/interviewers etc.’ This phrase In addition to equality in visible leadership use of recommendation letters, a classic can catch a glimpse of what the field perfectly illustrates a framework of positions and access to opportunities, re- means of hardening institutional influence could be. Themes such as embodiment, displacement, as institutional sexism and distribution and re-valorisation of roles is and fostering the biases and abuses - such collaboration, and experimentation seem racism are eclipsed by the self-elimination key. Individuals marginalised by racism, as sexual harassment – endemic to them. to consistently re-emerge, but perhaps it of one person and the supposed dearth of sexism, and other forms of discrimination is best to let the contributions speak for candidates, both distant problems outside We therefore need to be vigilant in tend to cluster in de-valorised roles, as themselves, and for you as reader to draw of the reach of responsibility and remedy. eliminating exclusionary practices part of a circular process: a combination your own conclusions about the vision While simple math would indicate that which arise through the reproduction of of exclusion from the more valorised roles of computer-music research this edition members of under-represented groups structures of discrimination not directly and the de-valorisation of roles which are proposes. in a field would need to do more of in our remit. Entry fees, ‘pay to play’, female and/or minority-ethnic identified. this work proportionally in order for or even free events that do not make Giving a voice to practice-based research References equal representation to be achieved, the provisions for expenses - travel, food, and valorising the contributions artists [1] No, I’m not going to give a reference critical mass of fully calling upon under- accommodation, childcare or personal make to the development of software for a bizarre internal memo containing represented members of the community assistant arrangements – reproduce and other technology are therefore steps misinformation. is far from being reached; and even if economic inequality, which also falls towards envisioning a more inclusive field. it were, the necessary time component along lines of gender and race. These [2] DeBoer, Fredrik. “Corporations are In terms of the challenges set out in this could be provided by a re-distribution of economic disincentives are particularly cracking down on free speech inside introductory text, our community is failing, labour, such as a radical re-adjustment of discriminative against researchers and the office - and out.” Washington and this edition also fails in several ways: teaching and research duties in academia practitioners outside of academia, but Post, August, 2017. https://www. we fall short of giving sufficient voice to to reverse the current status quo to favour they also reinforce inequalities among washingtonpost.com/outlook/ contributions from the global South, to the research activities of the under- academics: in the UK, the academic corporations-are-cracking-down-on- give just one example. We are all, in fact, represented rather than that of dominant gender pay gap stands at 12%, and would free-speech-inside-the-office--and- constantly failing, and can only claim groups. A radical re-evaluation of take 40 years to close at the current yearly out/2017/08/10/6a98809a-7baf-11e7- relative success in the push-back against categories and criteria is another solution: improvement rate [25]. This latter detail a669-b400c5c7e1cc_story.html?utm_ dominant modes of discourse and societal for instance, if one holds a conference is a reminder of the need for radical term=.5d61cd6e9057 (all below online hegemonies. But that doesn’t mean we in the UK and the main criterium for institutional change that does not index articles accessed 30 September, 2017). can’t imagine the kind of work we would a keynote speaker is a professorship, itself alongside incrementally-improving make in a better, less hierarchical, more [3] Kovach, Steve. “Fired Google this choice reproduces - consciously societal factors, such as the narrowing of 11 12 array special Not All Ideas Are The Same Patricia Alessandrini 2017/2018 engineer who wrote the anti-diversity commentisfree/2017/aug/09/ appeared at this time is: Bouton, manifesto appears to have removed a google-memo-man-women-tech-original- Katherine. “Peeling Away Theories [19] As quoted in O’Neal, Lonnae. Ph.D. program from his LinkedIn page.” computer-programmers on Gender and the Brain.” The New “Ibram Kendi, One Of The Nation’s Business Insider, August, 2017 http:// York Times, August, 2010. http:// [9] Brewer, Kirstie. “How the tech Leading Scholars Of Racism, Says www.businessinsider.fr/us/james-damore- www.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/ industry wrote women out of history.” Education And Love Are Not The removes-phd-studies-linkedin-2017-8/ science/24scibks.html. The Guardian, August, 2017. https:// Answer.” The Undefeated – ESPN, [4] Zamudio-Suaréz, Fernanda. “15 www.theguardian.com/careers/2017/ [14] For Fine’s notion of ‘neurosexism’, September, 2017. https://theundefeated. Members of ‘Third World Quarterly’ aug/10/how-the-tech-industry-wrote- see endnote 13. See also Wajcman, com/features/ibram-kendi-leading- Editorial Board Resign.” The Chronicle women-out-of-history. Judy. Feminism confronts technology. scholar-of-racism-says-education-and-love- of Higher Education, September, 2017. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991, and are-not-the-answer [10] Jeong, Sarah and Rachel Becker. http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/ Wajcman’s more recent TechnoFeminism. . “Science Doesn’t Explain Tech’s [20] hooks, bell. “Dig Deep: Beyond editorial-board-of-third-world-quarterly- Oxford: Wiley, 2013. Diversity Problem – History Does.” Lean In.” The Feminist Wire, resigns/120188 The Verge, August, 2017. https://www. [15] See for instance Gamard, Sarah. October 2013. http://thefeministwire. [5] Broder, David. “Sundar Pichai Should theverge.com/2017/8/16/16153740/ “How Free Eyeglasses Are Boosting Test com/2013/10/17973/ Resign as Google’s C.E.O.” The New tech-diversity-problem-science-history- Scores in Baltimore”, Politico Magazine, [21] Lee, Cynthia. “I’m a woman in York Times, August, 2017. https://www. explainer-inequality. August, 2017. http://www.politico.com/ computer science. Let me ladysplain the nytimes.com/2017/08/11/opinion/ magazine/story/2017/08/17/how-free- [11] Barnett, Rosalind C. and Caryl Google memo to you.” Vox, August, sundar-pichai-google-memo-diversity.html eyeglasses-are-boosting-test-scores-in- Rivers. “We’ve studied gender and 2017. https://www.vox.com/the-big- baltimore-215501. [6] According to Google’s own figures, STEM for 25 years. The science doesn’t idea/2017/8/11/16130452/google- there is a five-to-one male-female ratio (a support the Google memo.” Recode, [16] Freely, Irma P. “Urine trajectories memo-women-tech-biology-sexism 1% increase from the previous year) and August, 2017. https://www.recode. as a fundamental indicator of all human [22] As of 2015: Garner, Richard. only 1% Black employees in tech positions. net/2017/8/11/16127992/google- endeavor.” Society for Teaching and “UK Study Finds Just 17 Black Female https://www.google.com/diversity engineer-memo-research-science-women- Education, Another Moral Universe Professors.” The Independent, February, biology-tech-james-damore. (STEAMU), Australia, August 2016. [7] Devlin, Hannah and Alex Hern. “Why 2015. http://www.independent.co.uk/ are there so few women in tech? The truth [12] Molteni, Megan and Adam Rogers. [17] Kendi, Ibram X. Stamped from the student/news/uk-study-finds-just-17- behind the Google memo.” The Guardian, “The Actual Science Of James Damore’s beginning: the definitive history of racist black-female-professors-10019201.html August, 2017. https://www.theguardian. Google Memo.” Wired, August, 2017. ideas in America. London: The Bodley [23] Baker, Simon. “Times Higher com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/08/why-are- https://www.wired.com/story/the- Head, 2017 Education Pay Survey 2017.” https:// there-so-few-women-in-tech-the-truth- pernicious-science-of-james-damores- [18] As quoted in an interview by www.timeshighereducation.com/features/ behind-the-google-memo google-memo. Parr, Jessica. “Q&A: Ibram Kendi, times-higher-education-pay-survey-2017 [8] Brockwell, Holly. “Sorry, Google [13] Fine, Cordelia. Delusions of gender: Stamped From the Beginning.” The [24] Hall, Rachel. “Gender pay gap in memo man: women were in tech long how our minds, society, and neurosexism Junto, December, 2016. https:// academia will take 40 years to close.” The before you.” The Guardian, August, create difference. New York: W.W. Norton earlyamericanists.com/2016/12/08/qa- Guardian, May, 2017. 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/ & Company, 2010. A typical review which ibram-kendi-stamped-from-the-beginning 13 14 array special Pauline Oliveros at ICMC Re-Visited Maria Chavez & Seth Cluett 2017/2018 practice, when I’ve let the tools lead, Pauline adapt and utilize additional The point of the piece was to give the city the ear has followed and the work feels technologies I decided to give it a shot, an instrument that visitors could interact Pauline Oliveros at ICMC cold or detached from myself. When the and as a result my practice has grown by with, first by me providing the participants Re-Visited idea leads, when the musical need leads, leaps and bounds. with custom made guitar picks to strum Technology and the Self the technology is often more impactful. around the space while also encouraging That experience taught me how to love The way she evokes love is important: people to provide their own implements to the sound pieces that I created, but more by Maria Chavez & Seth Cluett it hints towards a warning that raw instigate a new sonic relationship with the so, it helped me rekindle my love of the infatuation with new things creates an gallery. In her 2010 keynote address to the HOW in making my work. Loving the overdetermination that can cloud creative International Computer Music HOW in Pauline’s performance practice The reviews for the installation were, output. I have always admired her ability Conference at Stony Brook University as well. pardon my pun, tone-deaf. The main to approach new techniques, technologies, [1], Pauline Oliveros presented a talk complaint was that the strumming of the and process with unbiased openness and PO: Listening takes place not in the ear but in entitled “Sex as we don’t know it: piece simply wasn’t “loud enough”. People critical reflection in equal parts, a true the brain-body after the ears gather and transduce Computer Music Futures.” In typical felt it didn’t work simply based on volume, love that accepts both features and flaws. sound waves and deliver them to the auditory the lack of which rendered the installation form, balancing humor with deep cortex. So listening is already inside of the body Maria: Absolutely. I really admired useless. I began to think about individual observation, Pauline raised a number and not out in the world even though we perceive how much she embodied technology perspectives of listening in the 21st of salient questions and offered sound outside of us...for most people, hearing in her work. There’s something really Century, where humans are surrounded profound insight into the nature of our occurs all of the time, listening occurs most of touching about that fact that even though by powered amplification, whether it be relationship with the computer as a tool the time and remains mysterious in its process... she’s gone, she is still walking around through small earbuds to hear music or for expressing audible creativity. Maria listening remains a private matter for each of us. Chavez and I, having both known and in 2nd Life. And I remember when she when one is in a car listening to the radio worked with Pauline for twenty years, got a midi controller for her electronic Maria: I’m always fascinated by or amplified speakers in stores. The tone- extracted comments and questions from accordion so that she could add sounds to individual perspective within the confines deaf argument that the reviewers were her keynote to have a dialog with her it, she was really excited about using it as of the senses. I use the word ‘confines’ unknowingly posing was the question ideas. an addition to her performance practice. because of past experiences where of “in the 21st Century, does volume It made me think about my strict rule of individuals only allowed their senses to determine the legitimacy of a sound PO: Do you love the music you make or that not adding technology to my practice, in experience particular triggers that they piece? And if so, what does that mean for others make? --OR-- Do you love how you favour of allowing the moment to have deemed suitable enough as cultivated by acoustic sounds that are not amplified? make the music you make or that others make? space to show itself. She still honored society. My favorite example to explain Is silence obsolete? If a sound is not Where do we locate that love? that simplicity within the framework of this form of one confining themselves to sharp, up front, attention-grabbing due Seth: At the outset, Pauline has put creating, but saw value in some versions their senses happened this past May when to powered volume, does that make the her finger on one of the key questions of added technology. I took that to heart I created a large-scale sound installation piece a failure? How does one determine that the ICMA has grappled with when I was gifted my first double-headed called String Room. 400 feet of piano legitimacy of sound installations if they regularly: where is technology situated needle and then my hand-held needle. I wire was strung up from floor to ceiling don’t consider all volume levels?” vis-à-vis music making. In my own normally would have turned down using and along the cement pillars of Co-Lab This was one of many times that I wish these gifts for my shows but after hearing Projects, an art space in Austin, Texas. Pauline was still around. I wish I could ask

1515 16 array special Pauline Oliveros at ICMC Re-Visited Maria Chavez & Seth Cluett 2017/2018 her opinions about it. But in a way, I ness of a body that, left unconsidered, expression and communication. The key your own personal artistry outside of already know her answer: all sound is risks being limited by the senses. I always here, I think, is to be aware of oneself the tools available, can be one of the legitimate, it’s the individual’s ear that ask myself, if we understand the world and be open to solutions outside of most important things when it comes to gets trained by society. But it’s a private through the senses we have, how much computation, especially engaging implicit honoring your creativity. matter when it comes to how the ear is more world is there to understand with computational thinking even when leaving PO: Regarding Manet’s cataracts and getting trained for each person. Hence the use of senses we don’t have, cannot access, or explicit hardware and software out of the them corrected: “when he looked at his paintings the word ‘confined’ for some. One day, which require translation between the creative process. On the other side, one can without the yellowing color that occurs when you a young man came into the installation sense modalities. The element of personal constantly revisit the pain-points that cause have cataracts, he didn’t recognize his paintings so with a plastic cup that had a lot of listening, of each listener’s unique filtering friction in the system created and allow that he made his doctor put a gel over his glasses so he condensation on the outside of it. The of the sounds of the world (and the to refine and clarify the work. could see his paintings as he did when he still had young man ran his fingers up and down sounds of our work as sound makers) are Maria: I definitely think that being aware cataracts.” one of the strings which made a large, often the last element to be considered – of the options outside of technology can echoing warm tone, à la Ellen Fullman. a sort of ‘guarding against the listener’ Maria: I really love this story, it makes me only help in expanding one’s practice. – that I have tried to front-load to the think about the romantic yet sad history This change of sonic direction only I curated a sound series ages ago called beginning of my process as I make work. of Impressionism, to paint the light not proved to me that the piece did in fact “What if we threw some dirt on the the object, only for the impressionist work. If anything, it worked beautifully. Somewhere between the listener, the ground” where I invited six electronic masters to develop eye diseases like I was simply the facilitator, offering composer/performer/artist, and the work musicians to a gallery space and asked cataracts. Monet adapted the cataracts, one implement to play the piece. The there is a dynamic and shifting dialog them to present a piece that didn’t use saying that it made the paintings better CITY decided how it wanted to hear the happening, a coming to understanding electricity, unlike their usual practice. The because he could no longer see the object. piece simply by this young gentleman of the stuff of sound that is in constant title for the series was my personal response experimenting with the water on the wire. flux. This perceptual malleability is a to that question, as I have a soft spot for Manet adapted in a different way, after His individual perspective was not as rich resource; by building resiliency into dirt and rocks. Everyone involved had a correcting his ailment he decided he confined as the reviewers were because the work, the program, the installation/ tough time adapting but the performance still wanted to see what he saw before, he was willing to experience through concert condition, and the score this results were fascinating. Some people sweeping through all the sight possibilities experimentation. Which was what the can be harnessed to create some really played acoustic instruments, one guy lit and going back to his hindered sight. This piece was made for, to encourage the magical moments where everyone up trick candles on a birthday cake and kind of adapting is key in improvisation participants to interact with the piece in becomes involved in the production of the performed with balloons…it was all very practice and one that I learned from order to expand their own experience work whether they realize it or not. inspiring. Pauline. She adapted to the future, saw within it. what it had to offer and chose wisely as a PO: So what happens to us when we continue to I do think that merging with technology is means to enhance her artistic process. I Just like Pauline says, some hear all the merge with our technology? inevitable yet short-sighted and hope that only hope that I can be so open to do the time, but the act of listening remains Pauline’s and others’ writing will remind Seth: I think there are two sides to this same. mysterious, private and unknown. and encourage people of the risk of getting question: one, a dangerous distraction or too attached to technology. Taking a step Seth: I think the parallel you draw to Seth: For my practice, what resonates illusion that technology is the only solution back to remind yourself of what drew improvisation here is spot on. When I with me in the statement from Pauline to problems; the other, an immediacy you towards being an artist to begin with, was younger, when I began studying is the sense of the inescapable situated- and fluency that allows for much greater 17 18 array Pauline Oliveros at ICMC Re-Visited Cat Hope 2017/2018 and improvising with Pauline, I was reading of graphic notations [2], was predisposed to think of improvisation we are mindful of our purposes, creations, designs, Notating Electronics devised from within the ensemble and as a dialog (often a kinetic one) where models, and simulations we could open up new has facilitated my composition practice improvising occurred against the sounds by Cat Hope and thrilling musical territory as we don’t know it. by providing a platform for coordinated produced by the other. Working with This paper will outline and examine the performances of graphic notations, Pauline taught me very concretely that Maria Chávez is known as an abstract techniques I have used in my compositions that such as my own. The application runs when improvising solo, duo, or with turntablist, sound artist and DJ. Accidents, include electronics. Using graphic notation a play head over an image coordinating others, there is always already a dialog coincidence and failures are themes that presented to performers as a moving, animated the musicians who read it, removing but it is between the sounds and not the unite her sound sculptures, installations score, I have notated electronic parts in over the need for coordinated clock reading people – it is between the elements placed and other works with her solo turntable fifteen works, mostly within acoustic settings. The and enabling the smooth, unpulsed on the canvas. In other words, this posits performance practice. She is currently works themselves attempt to activate the agency coordination of the performers [3]. an approach to sound-making that is a Research Fellow of the Unit for of the electronics performer with a chamber The score image is converted into a file about listening to what is happening in Sound Practice Research at Goldsmiths, music ensemble. The notations cover a range of format (.dsz) that makes it readable in the space between people, the meaning- University of London. http:// roles for electronics within the works that include the ScorePlayer [4]. I also create hard making that occurs because people are mariachavez.org/ the illustration of pre-prepared backing tracks, copies of all my scores, as landscape, A3 connecting across music… not speaking Seth Cluett is an American artist and instructions for programmers, live sampling, concertina paper copies. to respond, but listening and speaking composer who creates work ranging from playback and manipulation, electronic effects for to further what is made possible by Why Notate? photography and drawing to video, sound acoustic instruments, spatialisation, feedback interaction. Awareness of perceptual installation, concert music, and virtual control, as well as the representation of electronic Live electronic music performance biases, an acknowledgement of everything and augmented reality that addresses instruments such as the Theremin, synthesisers practice is a largely improvised one, – as it is – draws the actions of Manet the intersection of acoustics, attention, and radio static. and notations for electronic music and Pauline and of technology and music memory, and geography. He is Assistant have remained largely in the realm together. Introduction Professor of Music & Technology at the of representation, that is – after the PO: (PO has the last word): We need to be Stevens Institute of Technology, and The Decibel new music ensemble was performance [5]. What about notation careful of what we build upon. Post-human currently Artist-in-Residence at Nokia formed in 2009 as ‘a group of Western for electronic music performance where citizenry is a distinct possibility with old and Bell Labs. http://www.onelonelypixel.org Australian musicians, composers, the same results or processes are to be new political, social, educational, philosophical, improvisers and sound artists devoted replicated each time? I was fascinated References and music problems to solve. For me the time is to the realisation of music where with the creative capacity of the electronic right to investigate the possibility of becoming a [1] ICMC 2010 Keynote: https://vimeo. acoustic and electronic instruments are musician, that I will call an ‘electronics post-human citizen. I want to be a transformed com/12681663 represented’ [1]. The ensemble is made performer.’ musician who listens, creates, collaborates, up of musicians that are also composers Notations for electronic components in performs new music, and remains thoughtful and computer programmers facilitating chamber settings are used to depict a and concerned about others no matter who they different approaches to writing and variety of functions such as playback, are or what their origin may be. Technology is reading music. The Decibel ScorePlayer, interactive electronics, electronic taking us on a wild sexy ride into the future. If an iPad application enabling coordinated instruments or live sampling. Interactive

19 20 array special Notating Electronics Cat Hope 2017/2018 program components are rarely scored – the works. The acoustic instruments electronic performers and Bravo Compound other musicians, to trigger or manipulate rather they accompany the notated score in my electronic/acoustic instrument (2015, Figure 1a) for laptop orchestra. prepared material. Most of the works as a ‘patch’ or other software file that combinations are never amplified, and Chrome Arrow uses a combination of involve some combination of sampling, renders the electronics in performance. any electronic sound should sit within the ongoing sounds, increasing and decreasing playback and manipulation. This creates issues for longevity of acoustic chamber setting. ‘density’, glissandi and pizzicato indicators these works, where operating systems to be interpreted by any electronic group. Pure electronic music scores and software programs are constantly The premiere of the work in October 2014 being updated, and older versions being I don’t notate all the music I create, but was performed on a VCS3, a mobile phone discarded. This was of great concern I do notate works for other electronics software app, Little Bits and a modular to me – what of all those pieces for performers to play. This has included synthesizer. Bravo Compound was a much instruments and electronics? Who will duos, quartets and orchestras of electronic more abstract exploration, restricted to maintain the electronics parts? A number instruments. sounds below 200Hz at a constant volume. of compositions require one to ‘contact Opacity was used to signal a different The first of my notated works was Kingdom the composer’ or pay a fee to access a sound textures (dense to thin), hashed Come (2008) for two electronic performers, piece of software that is out of date and designs represented ‘noise’, and triangles as inspired by a decade of attending laptop doesn’t work. My pieces for electronics volume or pitch. The reading of circles are performances. Finding out exactly performers require the performsers to ‘realised with a subtle increase in volume, what individual laptop performers do create their own software solutions to loudest at the full ‘height’ of the circle, Figure 1. a-d: Notation for Bravo Compound, in performance fascinated me - do Kuklinski’s Dream, Cruel and Usual, and Lowest Drawer. realise the score. Today, they may use softest at the edge. Sonically, they should they play a pre-recorded track, apply Abelton, Pure Data or Max, in thirty represent a kind of ‘blossoming’ of sound filters or prepare complex interactive The first of these type of scores was Kuklinski’s years it is likely to be something else. The texture, not just volume’ [7]. These works Dream (2010) for bass clarinet, cello, viola, carving programs? Kingdom Come provides a result is what is written in the score, yet are provide the ‘shell’ described in the knives and electronics. The electronics performer range of parameters for the performers, the process of creating that result is up to instructions of Kingdom Come. They provide has three tasks – record the instruments playing, indicated in a greyscale graphic score play back the recording, then playback with the electronics performer. prompts for electronic artists, but do not that includes symbols for ‘sound blocks’, effects, where indicated. Long hashed rectangles dictate pitch or any starting content for the Most of my scores have a few key tenants samples, the movement of pitch, glitch run under the instrumental parts (Figure 1b), sound, but navigate the performer through and are shaped for dynamics. In this way, the in common. Pitch is not specified, sections, static, ring modulation, delay the sounds they choose. electronics can be triggered and manipulated in yet performers must listen to each and dynamics. The score can be seen as a real time. A more detailed preparation is required other so that they may make decisions “shell” or action guideline that musicians Writing for programming in Cruel and Usual (2011) for string quartet and four about a pitch they choose in relation use to shape their own and live sampled bass amplifiers. In this piece, the score indicates Electronics performers also feature to those around them. The scores are sounds, and interact with them in live a sample moment for each instrument. The in works for mixed ensembles. The sample is given a range in Hertz between which a proportional, so for example, if a part performance. As such, the score is not so combination of score and instructions playback pitch – as sine tone - should be chosen, is above another part, it should be much about creating sound, but ways to enable a programming approach – a patch, and played back through a bass amplifier behind proportionally higher, and if below a treat it through time [6]. a performer, either clean or distorted according to sequence, audio file – to be prepared before part on the score, lower. Whilst this the notation used (Figure 1c). Here, the electronics Other works for electronics only include the performance, and the artist follows the is not always completely possible, it performer must prepare a system that can sample Chrome Arrow (2014), for any four score in the performance alongside the and playback in real-time, within parameters, for is an important guiding principle for 21 22 array special Notating Electronics Cat Hope 2017/2018 a certain length, effect and dynamic Theremin part that draws heavily on the same slowed down file rendered marking. range. It can be triggered live, or be Grainger’s notation – Empire (2009) and backwards. The electronics performer Super Scores and beyond linked to the digital score playback. Wall Drawings (2014, Figure 2b). Kaps Freed decides how to use this material in the The electronics performer makes a pre- (2017) is a work that uses electronics to piece – all that is provided in the score Simon Emmerson uses the term ‘super programmed or live decision to which create a Theremin sound from the piano. is the when the sound is played, and the score’ to refer to a score that engages amplifier the samples will play back Pitches are sampled from the piano and dynamic shape playback it should take. the ear and eye together [11]. The through. continued in a Theremin like way. As in The electronic part for Wall Drawing uses a Decibel ScorePlayer enables audio Sogno 102, the electronics are notated in similar notation, but any material can be to be embedded in the digital score, This live sampling approach is also used an opaque version of the colours of the used (Figure 2b). realising Emmerson’s ‘super score’. This two other works from 2013, Sogno 102 for notation for the piano. enables the liver performance to be very bass flute, bass clarinet, cello, viola, piano In Erst (2015), a work for four musicians, accurately linked to the playback. The and electronics, and The Lowest Drawer A notation for room feedback features synthesiser and electronics, four feature is useful for reading historic works for bass flute, bass clarinet, cello and in Majority of One (2016) and my opera, microphones are placed near performers for instrument and tape – the score can electronics. The Lowest Drawer instructs the Speechless (2017). In both cases this is in the space. An opaque block of colour pass at the rate that matches the audio file same, realtime sampling of instruments notated with a grey sideways triangle, to matching the colour used to score the that was once tracked using a clock. as in Cruel and Usual, but the tone plays on be read as an increase in volume of the instruments indicates when the microphone through the piece and a ‘stack’ of tones resonant frequency of the room during should be switched on and off, diffused pile up (Figure 1d). Here, the electronics performance, as in Sogno 102 (Figure 2a) immediately after recording (Figure 2c), are notated in colour, and the instruments or after instruments have played, as in with an indication in the instructions to in shades of grey. In Sogno 102, the Speechless. ‘build up the clouds of sampled sounds sampling also occurs, but the tones slowly over duration of the piece’ [10]. Unlike The only piece I have written for an ascend or descend in pitch. Here, the Kuklinski’s Dream, there is no scored actual computer program is Great White electronics are notated in the same colour playback instruction. (2016), for two instruments and quintet. of the instruments, but opaque. Again, net, a program developed by Georg Some scores simply instruct performers to these can be manipulated or sampled in Hajdu [9] In this work, small excerpts apply effects to their sound. Liminum (2011) real time, or preset as a ‘run’ program. of famous historical pieces of music are for any number of instruments with effects, To date, to my knowledge, the electronics reproduced in the score – serving not as has a distortion/octaver guitar pedal for both these pieces have been preset notation, but rather as a trigger for the combination between a microphone on in Max. But in the future, there may be midi files of the works, provided to the the instrument and a small amplifier next Figure 2. a-d: Notation for Majority of One, Wall other program option. quintet.net performers to assign sounds to. to the performer. Only the effected sound Drawing, Erst, and Dynamic Architecture The Theremin has been an important comes through the amplifier, thanks to an The use of pre-recorded material inspiration for my thinking around the on off switch before the other pedals in the Signals Drectorate (2014) for any instrument provided as an extra file with the piece notation of electronics, and I undertook effects chain. The effect is written under and playback was the first piece to use this is an important part of Lupara Bianca a detailed study of the notation for Percy the instrument part, in a different colour, feature. Playback is notated on the score (2014) for singing viola performer and Grainger’s Free Music Theremin works as a kind of ‘underline’. In Juanita Nielsen as a guide for the performers reference. electronics. Two files are provided: a [8]. I have two works with a notated (2012) the amplifier has a simple on and off Audio plays via the mini jack port on the recorded gunshot slowed down, and 23 24 array special Notating Electronics Cat Hope 2017/2018 iPad, and the guide assists in providing Chunk (2011) is a work for Disklavier and a Hope. “Decibel ScorePlayer Application.” [9] Hajdu, Georg. “Quintet. net: coordination between the player/s and performer on grand piano. This virtuosic (2013). An environment for composing and the audio. An abstracted screenshot of piece has two parts to the score – one performing music on the Internet.” [3] Vickery, Lindsay. “The evolution of the audio file as it appeared in the Digital for the performer, one for the Disklavier. Leonardo 38, no. 1 (2005): 23-30. notational innovations from the mobile Audio Workstation (DAW) is used to A MaxMSP patch ‘reads’ the greyscale score to the screen score.” Organised represent the audio – as it gives the clearest score for the Disklavier in a man meets [10] Hope, Cat. “Erst” Frankfurt am Sound 17, no. 2 (2012): 128-136. ‘shape’ for the performers reference. machine challenge. Whilst a Max patch Main, Germany: Material Press, 2015. I have a series of works that use very low was developed for this work, anyone could [4] Wyatt, Aaron, and Hope, Cat. sine tones embedded in the score. The replicate it – the score for the Disklavier is [11] Emmerson, Simon. “Animated Music Notation on the iPad “Crossing cultural boundaries through pitches are presented as long rectangles, a score to be programmed. (Or: Music stands just weren’t designed arranged proportionally according to pitch technology?.” Music, Electronic Media Conclusion to support laptops).” Proceedings of the and Culture (2000): 122 as a guide for the performer. Again, these 2013 ICMC Conference. Perth (2013): This article has outlined a rationale and are screen shot from the DAW session 201-207. used to make the audio file, but abstracted some examples of an approach to notation into a light pink shade. This approach is for electronic instruments in chamber [5] Butler, Mark J. Playing with something featured in Dynamic Architecture 1 (2015) for music settings where acoustic instruments that runs: Technology, improvisation, double bass and transducer, with the audio are featured. The notation is designed to and composition in DJ and laptop playing through the transducer attached to provide electronics performers with the performance. Oxford University Press, the double bass (Figure 2d). Shadow (2016) autonomy to control their instrument in 2014. for two strings and sub tone, Pure (2014 rev the fashion best suited to them, but also to 2016) for string orchestra, percussion and retain a life for pieces that lasts beyond the [6] Hope, Cat. “Kingdom Come.” sub tone, and Tone Being (2016) for tam tam life of any operating system or software Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Material and sub tone all have the embedded audio that may be used to realise the notated Press, 2008. playing out through a subwoofer speaker. electronic contributions. AM radio static have appeared in several Biography [7] Hope Cat. “Bravo Compound.” works of mine, notated differently each Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Material Cat Hope is an Australian composer, time. In Miss Fortune X (2012), the visual Press, 2015. musician and researcher. She is currently noise on an old photocopy is performed Professor of Music at Sir Zelman Cowen [8] Hope, Cat. “Reading ‘Free Music:’ by a.m. radio static, whereas in Broken School of Music at Monash University, Adapting Percy Grainger’s ‘Free Approach (2014) and Fourth Estate (2014) the Melbourne. Music’ Scores for Live Performance”. radio static is indicated by a straight line. Proceedings of the 2015 WA Chapter of In each case, a hand held a.m. radio with References MSA Symposium on Music Performance a built in speaker is required, and the only [1] Hope, Cat. “Audible designs.” (2011): and Analysis. ECU Books. 5 (2017):140- instructions refer to volume control and 6. 152 on/off. [2] Wyatt, A., S. James, L. Vickery, and C.

25 26 array special Conversation I Muyassar Kurdi and Verónica Mota 2017/2018 as a feminist thinker, artist, and/or resistance is of utmost importance in that experimental performers sociohistorically musicians allowed for a more holistic it embraces intersubjective investigations, lack representation and are differentially Conversation I presence embracing multiple aspects valuing both social and personal (em)powered. In Sharmi Basu’s Sound & Performance as simultaneously. In other words, the experience. In 1984, Audre Lorde groundbreaking work on decolonizing Protest: A Conversation personal and political realms for women outlined the importance of recognizing sound, she states that otherness is integral in sound are being enunciated and difference in solidarity actions: to avant-garde and that an application with Muyassar Kurdi and reverberating internationally. In the decolonizing methods of deconstruction Within the interdependence of mutual Verónica Mota recent past and in less conscious music for musical culture is necessary. This must (nondominant) differences lies that spaces in the present, overt expression not be noted without the evident, that the by Marlo DeLara security which enables us to descend into of subjectivity put one’s work at risk of socioeconomic challenges that the chaos of knowledge and return with public interrogation; a devaluing of one’s “Against the backdrop of a corporate style true visions of our future along with marginalize and capitalize upon the project/works by an association with the arts sector, the decision to explore new forms the concomitant power to effect those female body, the idea of the feminine, words ‘woman’, ‘feminist’ and recognition or simply make work that intervenes in the changes which can bring that future the colored person, the other, and that of one’s own racial/ethnic naming. In this existing system can be a radical political act.” into being. Difference is that raw and body’s desire for social equity result in article, I will introduce the work of sound powerful connection from which our devastating gendered oppression that – Chris Garrard, ‘Creating Resistance: performance artists Verónica Mota and personal power is forged [2]. systematically erases women from history Art, Music, and Activism’ [1] Muyassar Kurdi. The dialogue surrounds and represses women into submission. each artist’s creative practices, how they Lorde asks us to interrogate our own Introduction [4] perceive their work as acts of resistance, intersubjective positioning because it is As a sound performance art and how their individual lives influence within our individual psyche and our Basu asserts that ‘creative music is a practitioner, academic, and activist, I their creative works. own hidden social prejudices, such as means towards liberation’ and with am continually looking for the ways homophobia and racism, the real political political unrest and social injustices, In light of the popularity of conservative for my different roles to nourish one work can begin. This psychoanalytical communal suffering ensues instigating a parties throughout the world aiming another directly. In the past several inward searching can be assisted by the revolt led by artistic creations. to derail social justice agendas, the years, the conversation in feminist creation and exhibition of art and music. representation of the multiplicity of In addition to enriching and complicating electronic experimental sound/ Narratives in creative forms demand voices and narratives becomes critically narratives, this artist conversation is to music/arts circles evolved into a well attention from those who enter the space. important. It is not enough to say one be read as a part of an uprising in which networked community of an academics Through contact with a cultural text, disagrees with the politics of Trump and the making of sound art is recognized and practitioners investigating ways one is challenged to think with outside Brexit but rather to see this public mass for its potency and usefulness in acts of to intervene in institutional gender their current worldview in attempts to roar of dissent as assembled from diverse resistance. barriers. Embracing inclusivity, the understand and approach the art object. and separate individuals. In other words, multiplicity of voices and situated Through art, ‘we can learn about our The Conversation this merging of the lived experiences knowledges are welcomed. The individual prejudices not only to expunge and the iteration of political beliefs from “Sounds are points of departure to enthusiastic participation of women them, but to illuminate them.” [3] realms of personal history, cultural continues. Self-naming one’s self the marginalized have become more consistently co-represented. This space of Non-white women sound artists memory, and political struggle.” – Tara Rodgers, Pink Noises [5]

2727 28 array special Conversation 1 Muyassar Kurdi and Verónica Mota 2017/2018 I chose sound performance artists their navigation through the constant and Verónica Mota see live performance Broaching the line between private and Muyassar Kurdi and Verónica Mota due whiteness and male power paradigms as having a different valence that lends public, a crossing of intimate goals and to the various arenas and dual/multiple embedded in social relations. Their artist itself to immediacy and protest. Kurdi social change was present throughout cultural consciousness in which they online presence(s) embrace personal and embraces the use of both recorded works the exchange. While both artists teach work. I had met Muyassar Kurdi while intimate thoughts as well as editorial such as film and improvised performance workshops that are socially transformative, she was on tour and we performed on the commentary on the arts and music scenes. as integral to her overall creative processes often empowering women to shed same bill. Her work was highly stylized in Statements regarding combatting the and personal growth. As politically aware hindering societal programming and contrast to the noise lineups I had grown patriarchy and questioning authority women, they harness their creative acts for channel one’s creativity from within, their accustomed to. Verónica Mota became are commonly placed at the forefront of ‘those moments when the flow of activism personal spiritual transformation was of known to me through her organization communications. In our conversation, emerges in a tangible form, are inherently major concern. Calling back to Lorde, Urban Arts Berlin which made open there were no overt discussions about performative.’ [1] these choices to care for one’s self is by calls for submissions for compilations race barriers but more so that living in a nature political and an act of resistance. Choosing a messaging platform to embracing women musicians. I submitted gendered and racialized world is a reality [7] Extending this further, being open to connect, I began by asking both New York to one of her compilations and began that keeps neither from continuing to growth is a form of self-care. based Muyassar Kurdi and Berlin based to observe Urban Arts Berlin’s woman create art. Verónica Mota to introduce themselves. I present both women as artists, centered curatorial projects abroad. I While the electronic sound processes My goal was to create a casual atmosphere colleagues, and sisters in troubled times forged cyberfriendships through our and technology used in both Kurdi and in which they could speak honestly and and encourage readers to go beyond these mutual interests and a sharing of personal Mota’s work is often associated with the unfiltered about their work and experiences brief synopses. stories through social media. ‘noise’ music genre, I think it is useful with sound technology and its relationship Verónica Mota: Technological While both are comfortably situated to see their experimental electronically to acts of resistance. This was to be an Activism and Spiritual Openness within the international DIY underground processed work beyond the scope of intimate conversational space where one noise music, both are open to using artist genre. The term ‘experimental’ is being could speak honestly about passions and As [a] humanist I do not only talk about my residencies and funding bodies in order used to contrast it from the mainstream individual expressions. I merely wanted to personal journey…I don’t like much to be to continue to create. Though some of art and music. I agree with Joanna create an atmosphere to recognize them as ambivalent and meaningless. I like to reach people these attempts have been unsuccessful Demer’s definition of experimental ‘as they chose to represent themselves, their through communication and intellectual contents. due to institutional preferential treatment anything that has departed significantly personal narratives relayed as they saw – Verónica Mota of White practitioners and/or the from norms of the time, but with fit. For example, how did being a single Verónica Mota’s sound and performance unfeasibility of living wages during the understanding that something mother effect Verónica Mota’s work? Or art tends to be ‘storytelling oriented’. residencies, any economic options must experimental in 1985 could have inspired how did Muyassar Kurdi see touring solo Her pieces are not to always be seen be pursued. Simultaneously aware of the what was conventional by 1990’. [6] as a woman? For the sake of brevity, it is as total abstraction but to ‘send a clear importance of self-management and self- Pushing that further, these experimental unfortunate not to be able to learn more of message across’ that can be critical of the promotion, neither hesitate to be vocal works aim to transgress language that their personal lives. Yet there is a dynamic politics of the day. In live performance, about their feminist beliefs and displeasure restricts interpretation and perhaps nature to the sharing of narratives and I Mota pushes past her audience’s comfort with mainstream misogynist world views distances performer from the audience. feel I am more familiar of the dissonance zone by examining power dynamics. and the capitalist structures working While both have impressive discographies and harmony of their lives. She describes effective performances as against artists. Their words acknowledge and continue to record, Muyassar Kurdi 29 30 array special Conversation I Muyassar Kurdi and Verónica Mota 2017/2018 ‘leaving a mark in my path…They have to educational social justice: In short, for Verónica Mota, technology I am Mexican with a strong Inigena confront[ed] me with something and/ is a method of democratizing the arts and and Afro heritage. When I was …I distrust the academia because often or show me possibilities of being.’ Her creative works beyond social institutional living and staying in Mexico I was academics ended in their middle-class praise of direct action and clarity in barriers. completely rationalist. Interested circles talking about the important execution and structure in artistic works is only on Philosophy, Ethics, Politics, themes completely disconnected … technology is a key element for a mainstay of her aesthetic. Economics and Sociology, to mention of reality. I dislike that. I think we creative expression, social interaction and some areas. Once I moved to Germany, As organizer and founder of Urban have a responsibility towards people. political activism. Machinery, software after a couple of years, a German Arts Berlin, ‘a nonprofit organization Particularly when education is a and Internet are very valuable skills for introduced to me Mexican Shamanism. promoting noncommercial works from privilege not everyone can access. I left resistance... If you combine both art & I was very skeptical after growing up all over the world’, under which her the academia in order to learn from real pedagogical practice we contribute to under Catholicism. Metaphysic and online label and radio shows operate, people & their personal stories, among a new level of human rights & better the occult were not for me at that time. Mota further takes direct action to other things such as political events, relationships. Today, thanks to my open mind and shift programming and refocalize the etc… international meetings and research role of women in music production. While Mota did not originally work with I found there are different areas of For Mota, networking and community, women primarily, her sound technology interpretation and understanding particularly amongst other women and workshops focus on ‘female identified’ towards Shamanism… [in creative work] the ‘gay community’, have been integral [1] populations and those with less somehow, I have manage[d] to open to managing these difficulties. Her comfort with, as well as limited access some doors where magic appears and professional roles are immediate methods to, technology. For example, Mota spoke people are able to connect with me and to adjust gender attitudes in experimental of an upcoming event in which she is others. Some kind of ‘Let’s kill the Ego’ music culture and technology. instructing refugee women on DJ software with noise and be fucking real. Let’s While describing her workshops, Verónica and hardware. open the Pandora box and organize a Mota used the term ‘technological bit those feelings of pain and frustration. I focus on giving [in] depth but also on activism’. To the artist, the phrase is a Yes, it hurts. Very, very much. But you encouraging women to be creative and concrete strategy to subvert the dominant are not the only one. use the skills to express themselves, gender imbalance in music technology. their stories, ideas, dreams and fears. I The cathartic effect of her noise Her approach to technological activism do also focus on helping women to work performances serves to destabilize the is derived from her own university Figure 1: Verónica Mota on their self-esteem. My pedagogical ego and decrease the separateness felt experience in Mexico City where concept is complex. It is not only about Mota describes her performances as in daily life. Mota describes a critical she studied philosophy and various how to plu[g] cables, connect interfaces ritualistic art. This due to her own personal moment in which her ethnic associations social sciences. Her negative views are and/or operate a machine. It goes far transformation culled from various spiritual were destabilized. As a migrant from based on the elitism and class barriers beyond that. It is about helping women practices to learn more about herself and Mexico, the colonial technology of Spain, obscuring knowledge within the academic to be present, to have a voice and to others, encouraging a more open world Catholicism has deleted native religions. institution. This led her to further develop probe we can manage technology. view. This is similar to my own story where the technological workshops as an approach Philippines, a former colony of Spain as 31 32 array special Conversation I Muyassar Kurdi and Verónica Mota 2017/2018 well, has become the largest Christian movement. One may ask: what comes that we stay connected with each other nation in Asia. To combat my own first the sound or the movement? And and listen deeply. Then we are never inherited colonized mindset, I abandoned there is this in-between place of tension lost. In one of my collaborations, I my Catholic roots. In Mota’s spiritual in my live performances in regard to the am performing and recording with a journey, she has redefined, reclaimed, and form. There is form like parameters with cellist, Nicholas Jozwiak. We perform enriched her understandings of her own room for improvisation. movement, voice, cello, and bass. We motherland. These moments can be read rehearse often and work heavily with For Kurdi, the improvisational method as a personal form of decolonization. As form. At the same time, there is room is a way to be fully engaged with the Sharmi Basu explains, “decolonization (the for improvisation in almost everything performance and to contain the space. process of restoring Indigenous identity) we do. What is important is that we stay Her performances rely on non-linear can be very personal.” [8] connected with each other and listen explorations of her affective and bodily Figure 2: Muyassar Kurdi deeply. Then we are never lost. minds: Muyassar Kurdi: Healing Recently during my tour in Europe, Community and Working though the It is this language about [T]o be present in the environment I mostly sang unplugged with my Body interconnectedness and mutual struggle and I need it like I need the form which electronics. I am interested in stripping that characterizes Muyassar Kurdi’s An act of resistance for me is learning to live and holds a focus, a contour which binds down to the minimal. It challenges me to work. While being very deeply located be in my body and dance has been a very healing it together. I am an interdisciplinary use my body in different ways, raise my within her body experience, boundaries force. Patriarchy is really eating me alive. – artist; I use different modalities so form sensitivity and awareness, and to think of must stay permeable in order to expose Muyassar Kurdi is important for seeing how to present light, architecture, and interaction with a vulnerability central to her creative them together. I am interested in the the audience. And of course, through Muyassar Kurdi is an Arab American act. The boundaries that define her as cinematic experience, a full expression improvisation comes form. I created sound and performance artist, based a woman, as a human, as a performer, using the body and voice which explores pieces from improvised sessions that in New York city. Contrasting from the as a collaborator, as a co-occupier of space, interacts, loves, challenges. Multi- perhaps get reworked over and over often-saturated electronic processing in mutual space and time – all are variables modality is very important to my work; again until they are far from the origin. abstract noise/sound art, her work is self- that Kurdi manages in performance. it is my vision to embody. It couldn’t be Sometimes the sound just comes out aware and attentive to silence and present By recalling associations intending any other way for me. I am interested and that’s that; the piece is made in a moment. Kurdi openly addresses timeless to create an agendered performer in so much, and at the same time my moment. It is easy if you are open to it existential dilemmas and questions her own experience, or rather a body that pushes work is very minimal. Maximal in the then everything just comes naturally and methodology in her pieces. When asked against the gender body assumptions, minimal, at that. I prefer to work with intuition. In one about the sound technologies used in her the audience must acknowledge their of my collaborations, I am performing work, Kurdi responded While being respected for her homemade conceptual limitations. All the while, a and recording with a cellist, Nicholas electronics and electroacoustic live performance is immediately within an I am interested in technology and the Jozwiak. We perform movement, voice, compositions, Kurdi experiments with her audience member’s senses. body and how these two worlds overlap cello, and bass. We rehearse often and own creative and bodily comfort zones. and inform each other. The devices create work heavily with form. At the same time, In my artistic process as an These experiments further gestate until many textures and layers of atonal and there is room for improvisation in almost interdisciplinary artist, I tend to break born anew. microtonal sounds reacting to light and everything we do. What is important is down the walls between performer

33 34 array special Conversation I Muyassar Kurdi and Verónica Mota 2017/2018 and audience member as well as the I had my own political agenda in framing In directing our care towards ourselves com/2015/11/19/creating-resistance-art- borders that define gender and art the conversation. As a non-white woman we are redirecting care away from its music-and-activism/ disciplines. In my current performances, making sound art, inspired by Sharmi proper objects, we are not caring for there is nothing ‘concrete’ in what I Basu’s work, I had hoped the discussion those we are supposed to care for; we [2] Lorde, Audre. 1984. “The Master’s am doing - for example, I hardly use would encourage a sense of solidarity are not caring for the bodies deemed Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s words in my singing, but my movement within me, being among my sisters. While worth caring about. And that is why in House.” The Anarchist Library: 3. and vocalizations are very feminine I have found solace in feminist collectives, queer, feminist and anti-racist work self- https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ and charged. So it is an act of protest women of color are generally a minority care is about the creation of community, audre-lorde-the-master-s-tools-will-never- and both men and women audience within noise music and sound art. Yet fragile communities, assembled out dismantle-the-master-s-house members are moved by my work, but every time inequalities and invisibilites are of the experiences of being shattered. [3] Stern, Donnel B. 1993. “Discussion.” it always sticks out to me when women recognized, there is hope that the sense of We reassemble ourselves through the Contemporary Psychoanalysis 29(1): 51. approach me especially when traveling being othered will feel less uncomfortable ordinary, everyday and often painstaking abroad because it never occurred to them and more natural. work of looking after ourselves; looking [4] Basu, S. 2014. Decolonizing Sound: that this kind of freedom existed for a after each other. This is why when we Experimenting Otherness in the 1960s The conversation did achieve that but woman… have to insist, I matter, we matter, we are and 2010s. MFA. Mills College: 9. not in the way I had foreseen; rather, transforming what matters. [9] Furthermore, this vulnerability serves listening to both sonic artists articulate [5] Rodgers, Tara. 2013. Pink noises not only her work but as a way to their own stories and creative processes Biography women on electronic music and sound. address the boundaries that disregard the catalyzed a need to frame this piece as a Durham [N.C.]: Duke University Press. Marlo De Lara is a sound performance violence and traumas endured living in community action. The ‘artist struggle’ is Kindle edition. Location 140. artist and experimental filmmaker contemporary society. By allowing the well known but put within the context of currently pursuing a PhD in Cultural [6] Demers, Joanna Teresa. 2010. audience community to internally process current political unrest and sociohistorical Studies at the University of Leeds. Her Listening through the noise the aesthetics the performance, Kurdi’s work becomes gender barriers, the work of making art is research addresses subjects relating to of experimental electronic music. Oxford emancipatory to the viewer. By being more critical than ever to the individual feminism, representation of marginalized [u.a.]: Oxford University Press: 7. present, one is central to the performance and the social body. It nourishes our populations, and creative work as political and yet marginal in intentional activity. emotionally exhausted souls by allowing [7] Lorde, Audre. 1998. A Burst of action. As curator and organizer of another method to exist and create. The Light, Essays. London; Sheba Feminist It’s always difficult doing something the Ladyz in Noyz (LIN) international sharing and talking about surviving these Publishers. where you remain open and vulnerable compilation series/collective, ashe tumultuous times feeds the community but then get rejected. I just keep going, continues to promote emerging artists and [8] Basu, Sharmi. 2017. of individually suffering marginalized the act of perseverance, and a reminder musicians who are women. “DECOLONIZING SOUND.” Prezi. peoples. In this way, it is a revolutionary of why I’m doing this at all. It’s a spiritual com, Presentation, https://prezi.com/ act and a survival method. We must live References journey, and now I’m clear that it is one oabihrln39nz/decolonizing-sound/ through this. We must create. We must of healing the community too because I [1] Garrard, Chris. 2016. “Creating commune with others and extend our self- [9] Ahmed, Sarah. 2014. ‘Selfcare want to be ‘free’ but how am I free unless Resistance: Art, Music and Activism.” care to the larger community. I will leave as Warfare’. feministkilljoys. https:// my neighbors are also free… NOISE & SILENCE. https:// this with Sarah Ahmed’s call to action: feministkilljoys.com/2014/08/25/ noiseandsilencemagazine.wordpress. Postscript selfcare-as-warfare/ 35 36 array special Artist Statements I Nour Mohamed Mahmoud Emam 2017/2018 Sufi order - to perform an improvisatory worship [2]. There are different turuq scales and melodic modes. It is forbidden live set during their weekly hadra ritual (Sufi orders) who have different sheikhs for Muslims to ‘improvise’ with their Artist Statements I in Cairo, Egypt. This essay will briefly (i.e. spiritual guides/mentors) and must Qur’anic recitations, as such attempts are Al-Hadra: A Live Electronic recap previous research as well as cover complete additional worship duties, such perceived as disrespectful to the sacred Music Improvisation within updated findings regarding cultural and as private recitation of certain names of nature of the text. religious information concerning music in the Islamic God, and a weekly gathering There is a growing interest in spirituality a Sufi Worship Ritual Islamic practice prior to focusing on the of the followers for dhikr, a remembrance in both Middle Eastern cultures and methodology and the implementation of ritual [2][3][4]. by Nour Mohamed Mahmoud Emam Western cultures, particularly in seeking this performance piece. Al-Hadra is a practice-based There are different approaches to Sufi a spiritual life away from the constraints ethnographic research project that In my paper ‘21st Century Islam: rituals depending on which tariqa (Sufi of strict religious adherence [7]. Semas, culminated in a live performance Towards an integration of Electronic order) is practicing. In Turkey, there are which literally means listening, is based during a Sufi worship ritual. Al-Hadra music with Sufi worship rituals’, I had schools of whirling dervishes, who are on listening to music in order to ‘attain is a continuation of a previous research discussed the importance of sound and accompanied by a band and a vocalist. In divine contact, trance or illumination’ project I had conducted in 2015, music, whether instrumental or vocal, Egypt, some Sufi orders rely on percussive [4]. It is not based on collective vocal or titled ‘21st Century Islam: Towards an in Islam. This is a religion that depends instruments and clapping during their musical participation, but consists of a Integration of Electronic Music with solely on ‘vocal transmission, recitation, rituals, while others only use their voices music ensemble that does not take part Sufi Worship Rituals’. Past findings cantillation and audition’ [1]. It is known and breath. Some orders are more in the worship ritual and the worshippers led me to speculate as to whether the to us, however, that Islam is also a religion melodic and musical in their recitations, who experience the Sema. In Turkey, integration of an electronics musician whose somewhat rigid rules have deprived while others are less so. Sufis use music in some rites with music involving whirling within the Sufi worship situation would practicing Muslims of innovation within their ritual, in the belief that it helps them dervishes are open to tourists to see and enhance worshippers’ spiritual and their worship obligations and rituals. connect to God and enter an ecstatic state hear. But how does this affect the ritual? religious experience. The exploration Although this orthodoxy has pushed of love through reciting God’s name and Has it become merely a show? Muslims to seek more mystical means of singing songs of praise [5]. aided in gathering information Although many tariqas do not permit connecting with their belief, the room regarding traditions and rules in Islam Although music for worship is not bound recording, whether audio or video, for out-of-the box approaches in such concerning music and worship. It to a certain style as long as it represents many others encourage it as a means to ‘mystical’ practices is practically unheard resulted in three sound pieces, which divine love, Sufi worship music still make it known to the world. However, of. I called ‘studies’, that explored the adapts to the culture it is created in caution must be taken with making such possibilities of integrating electronic In discussing this project, it is important [6]. Therefore, Sufi worship music is materials available to the public, as it music with recordings I had made of to start with a clear definition of Sufism: commonly associated with Middle Eastern may be incorrectly used. For instance, excerpts of Sufi rituals. Sufism is the mystical part of Islam, and music and is hardly ever found to have people who are not aware of the religious In August 2016, I was granted although it is often understood as a sect in Western musical qualities. This is mainly and sacred significance of such materials permission by one group of Sufis Islam, Sufism and Sufis are not part of a due to the fact that Qur’anic recitation could sample such records for their own following the Rifayyia tariqa - a specific sect, as Sufism is supplemental to Sunnite and songs praising God and the Prophet productions. ‘Oriental Sufi Music’ is and Shīʿite Sects. Sufis seek closeness to Muhammad must follow certain rules of now found in clubs and discos, because God and purification of the soul through recitation, corresponding to Arabic music it is being used by people who do not

3737 38 array special Artist Statements I Nour Mohamed Mahmoud Emam 2017/2018 necessarily have knowledge of its meaning for musical enjoyment [9]. Maadi, Cairo. I used two stereo pairs of the music helped them enter the focused [6]. speakers, which I rotated to face the walls state of mind of the ritual quicker than The word ‘hadra’ literally means and had them tilted slightly upwards, usual, and some men reported having During the research phase of this project, ‘presence’. Worshippers believe that when ‘seen’ things through the sounds they were I came across many artists - typically they perform the hadra, God, the angels thus diffusing the sound more and avoiding hearing. They felt the lower frequency from Middle Eastern/Muslim countries - and saints are present during the ritual. It a specific directionality that could possibly sounds resonated in their chests and producing what they call ‘Electronic Sufi is also expected of each participant to be distract the participants during the ritual. I the higher frequency drones gave them Music’. Dhafer Yousef’s album ‘Electric fully ‘present’ in themselves and present performed live using pre-recorded material a sense of floating. One man told me Sufi’, a cross-over between oriental oud with God during the ritual. Within the in an Ableton Live set. I was particularly that he felt that he was flying when he music and oriental jazz, is one example: hadra there is a section called the dhikr inspired throughout this process by Eliane heard the softer drones at the end of the signs of electronically-produced sound are (pronounced: zikr), in which worshippers Radigue’s slowly evolving and in my session, and experienced an enhanced audible throughout the album. Another recite certain names of Allah in a certain opinion, highly emotional and spiritually sense of release when the music stopped example is a band called Egyptian Project, order and tempo, accelerating according moving 1998 album, ‘Trilogie de la between each divine name during the in particular their song ‘Soufi’. This song, to the leader’s command [4]. Mort’. Furthermore,’The Talking Drum’ dhikr. Moreover, I noticed the participants sung in Arabic and featuring Middle by Bill Viola, Terry Riley’s piece ‘Shri As a researcher in this project, I have trying to sing in key with the sounds I was Eastern instruments, has quite a modern Camel’ as well as the inspiring and highly come to understand how crucial it is to playing. The Rifayyia Tariqa’s hadra is sound and beat, as opposed to traditional underrated Halim El- Dabh’s 1944 ‘Wire take the time in getting to know your usually not very melodic, but I observed praise songs. Additionally, the musician Recorder Piece’, were all works I listened to subjects, and in my case, to get to know a shift in their tone such that they were Mercan Dede uses a lot of sema’ music frequently during the music writing process. the ritual that is of interest to me. I have leaning more towards singing rather than and electronic beats in his works, although been participating in the hadra of the In addition to sampling notes from my speaking. It was also interesting to see they are still quite restricted to the oriental Rifayyia tariqa for almost three years, analogue synthesiser, I recorded people how their emotions were affected by the sounds one is expecting to hear when and I believe this project would not have of both genders, aged 8-50, reciting the music: when I played softer sounds, their listening to ‘Sufi music’. been possible had it not been for this long divine name ‘Hu’, which translates to ‘He’ voices would grow softer, and their facial I have yet to come across attempts to observation/participation time. When and is regarded in Sufism as the ultimate expressions would soften as well. merge Western musical styles with the the researcher is not part of the group or name of Allah [1]. I then stretched these The performance was a unique content of Sufi worship rituals, even has not given him/herself enough time recordings into audio files that were 30-40 experience for me, as I was not a though the sema’ is not bound by a to gain acceptance within the group, the minutes each and mixed them during the participant in the hadra for the first time certain style of music genre. As long as ethnographer may produce work that is performance either separately or together, in my life, but rather an observer. I had it evokes spiritual, ascetic emotions for not close and accurate to his/her subjects which resulted in a choir-like drone sound. concerns in the weeks leading up to the worshippers, then one can create sounds [10]. By taking my time in participating The hadra lasted approximately one performance, because I did not feel like and music for dhikr and sema’ in any in the weekly hadra, I was able to develop hour; the participants that day were four I was in the spiritual or emotional place way or form [8], bearing in mind that an understanding of and sensitivity to males and two females all aged 45 to 75 I was in when I first started researching the musical element in religious rituals the structure of the ritual and the slight (see Appendix A for Ritual timeline and for this project. I was worried that the should always be kept under control, as variations in group emotion and states of breakdown) [11]. music I was going to play would not be the listener and performer should not mind from week to week. The feedback I received from the group genuine and that this would reflect on my neglect the sacred meaning of the ritual The hadra took place in a flat in suburban was entirely positive. They agreed that performance. During the performance, I 39 40 array special Artist Statements I Sisters Akousmatica 2017/2018 was not connecting to the ritual spiritually, Muhammad. the commercial market, but in nature, in Queens, Julia Drouhin and Phillipa but instead was completely immersed in regional and remote places, in industry, in Stafford, left Signal, a youth arts venue 30:20 to 56:05 minutes: The dhikr the improvisation. It was also particularly communities, and is the potential site for at Northbank, Melbourne, armed with begins straight afterwards. The dhikr difficult because this was not like any radical action or, simply, communication twenty-eight radios, to begin a slow is a dynamic part of the ritual, where other performance: I felt responsible for between people. The radio, as a physical walking journey of transmission around worshippers recite different names making the participants enter and enjoy object, can be a musical instrument or a the urban Yarra River. Simultaneously, of Allah, which translate to different their ritual and was burdened by the transmission vessel for uncensored content 3CR, a community radio station, be-gan a attributes of God. Some attributes are possibility of distracting them with my to occupy public space. Radio provides live seven hour street broadcast featuring stronger and more ‘aggressive’ than music instead. an invisible spectrum of possibilities to sound artists with diverse practices, others, which can also be observed in the invade visible territories. In this context, programmed content highlighting the I found it particularly interesting to see recording with the participants’ change of as a constellar mode of collaborative historical and on-going contribution of how the presence of sound and music had tone, tempo and emotion. I tried to mirror performance, Phillipa Stafford and Julia women to the station, and pre-recorded a substantial effect on the participants. these aspects in my music as well. Drouhin created Sisters Akousmatica, a messages from the Radio Queens. A This was also confirmed by them after 56:30 until 62:30 minutes: Participants collective radiophonic project to carry project developed for Melbourne-based the session, when they reported feeling read out prayers to their loved ones and the voices of women and non-binary experimental arts or-ganisation Next more ‘in-tune’ with the ritual and felt their the saints and prophets and end the hadra people into the public realm as a form of Wave and mentor organisation, Liquid emotions heightened. The question that by singing a short song of praise for the agoradio, and as a space to gather, or to Architecture, Sisters Akousmatica took remains unanswered for me, however, is Prophet Muhammad. open discussion. place during 2016 Next Wave Festival and how to move forward with this project, also Mother’s Day in Australia. and whether this is something that can be Sisters Akousmatica The use of digital technology is embedded developed further and presented to the Agoradios for Little-Heard in our collaborative projects as well as Sisters Akousmatica created an public. Voices in our individual practices. Using field acousmonia or city-scale radio orchestra recording, handmade electroacoustic and invited eves (NZ/VIC), Angie Garrick Timeline & Breakdown of “Al- musical instruments, audio editing soft- (NSW), Kate Geck (VIC), Rosalind Hadra” Performance for Project 3 by Sisters Akousmatica ware and hardware in our experimentation, Hall (VIC), Shani Mohini-Holmes (with 00:00 until 07:00 minutes: I am silent Sisters Akousmatica work on the premise we use digital technologies to share local Georgie Darvidis, VIC), radio cegeste as the participants recite excerpts of the of this: and ephemeral events and extend them (NZ/TAS) and Ela Stiles (NSW) to Holy Qur’an as no music may be played The act of listening is a magnetic force worldwide. explore the concept of akousma, the during this time. idea of sound removed from its source. and unfolding creative attraction that Concerning Sisters Akousmatica, the Each performer, cloistered within Signal 07:00 until 14:30 minutes: Participants expands our imagination with radical live performances are shared not only performance space and broadcasting transition into prayers and verses of praise potential. And does so through live by terrestrial broadcast but also through to the city, created a new, improvised for the Prophet Muhammad. During this broadcast and transmission, recordings digital broadcast which allows listeners who sound work and were encouraged to use time, I am able to start introducing sounds and ephemeral performance. are not physically present to witness it. It the sound of the previous performance to the ritual. reaches more audience: in their cars, home The beauty of radiophonic technology is as their inspiration, creating an audio and workplaces. 14:50 to 28:30 minutes: The worshippers that it is accessible for just about anyone, exquisite corpse. Each transmitting their sing a poem of praise for the Prophet anywhere [12]. Radio exists not only in On May 8th, 2016 at 11am, Radio presence into the flux of the cityscape: 41 42 array special Artist Statements I Sisters Akousmatica 2017/2018 a voice that we can see, then a voice transmitters and receiver modules to The movements of the Sisters in along Signal’s 18-speaker outdoor sound without body, and just the sound of that activate new ethereal territories [14], diffusing the sound were subtle, not walk on Les Erdi Plaza daily for two voice mixed with daily noises. Relaying the project is not so much site-specific as overly performative, creating a shifting weeks, carrying voices a bit further, a bit the sound, an instrumentarium of radios site-responsive and this acousmonia, can awareness of the space as radios were longer. played with the texture of the city and be set up in any space in a multiplicity moved around me, and ritualising the Not only a radio transmission project, looped from one radio to another, each of broad-cast/performer/sound transmission in a way that took the radio Sisters Akousmatica focuses on giving radio playing the same broadcast but configurations. The digital aspect of the experience out of casual listening and voice and visibility to social-cultural with its own texture, flavour, and signal broadcast offers the possibility to expand into focused performance listening. It and gender minorities in the field of strength. invisible territories in private space. was a powerful experience for me in experimental sound art and in this hearing a series of female musicians being This ecology, created from the visible The aim for the acousmonia was to spirit our part-nership with 3CR was broadcast throughout the city over such a (radios, performers, a specifically designed conjure a mysterious and ritualistic not just of technological advantage but duration [17] radio cart) and the invisible (the web of experience of sound, drawing on a one of mutual understandings: commu- broadcast transmission, which included non-hierarchical understanding of art Through this process recordings were nity radio, unlike its male-dominated both live performance, live programmed intervention in situ. Using radio and generated and gathered for a collective commercial counterpart is a space in interviews and pre-recorded content, instruments as both sculptural form and installation at Signal after the seven hour which women are trained in production specifically for the project) gave audiences tools for performance, it established a live broadcast. This installation was a sound and management [18]. and performers a layered experience layered relationship between form and experiment in which twenty-eight radios This project, which started as an finite which subverted notions of sources and con-tent, representing chaotic, rhizomic were tuned to seven competing frequencies, curatorial premise for Next Wave Festival copies through radio broadcast and this systems that loop and feedback [15]. transmitting the recorded performance, 2016, has expanded and continued ‘diffused network of social interaction’ inside the gallery/performance space. Our presence as costumed “Radio as an umbrella for curatorial, artistic, [13]. This was an opportunity to play and be Queens”, while an aspect that exists in written and performance projects, under playful with electromagnetic fre-quencies, We also provided the audience with a riso- friction with the concept of akousma, the scope of “radio art”. Through bodies, distance and the concept of the printed map, as well as a paper printed turned them into literal broadcast nodes positioning electromagnetic frequencies radio orchestra. The custom radio cart was amulet. This amulet was made by one (the costumes are, in fact, working radios) in a network of active and pas-sive trans-formed into a central mono speaker of the performing artists, Kate Geck, and is also used as a demarcation of the participants we create a collective ecology and seven transmitters were connected who developed her artwork as a AR code performance space. “The body itself, as of sound. to four radios each, reconfiguring seven with the app LAYAR. Any participant you know, is an electrical device” [16]. radiophonic floating islands, symbols of Sisters Akousmatica is interested in the on the walk could scan the amulet with a Slipping between performer, radio the performers. None of the recorded live male-dominated coded language used in smartphone and see the location of the and host, we, as Radio Queens led the performances were synchronised with each radio communica-tion and aim to twist walk and link to the Sisters Akousmatica audience gently through a radiophonic other so the composition never repeated: it; invading and appropriating them in website for more information, augmented journey. Moving slowly through public the resulting audio was an unpredictable, conceptual and material ways. with visual and animated details. space as a disruption, walking à la flâneur, layered acousmonia, interwoven with the In 2017 Sisters Akousmatica, with the Investigating the possibilities of we car-ried a heavy vessel full of receiving ambient sound of the gallery space. This assistance of governmental funding body, performance through the building radios that broadcast live radioscapes at ambient gallery sound, with the recordings Arts Tasmania, developed a Sound Camp of temporary networks, made up of specific geophonic points. looping and layering, was also transmitted 43 44 array special Artist Statements I Emah Fox 2017/2018 Camp for women and non-binary sound The act of simply being women in The Arts Centre, Melbourne; and want painfully aware too, that there was a artists, which took place across two public space, in radio/broadcast space, to thank 3CR; Signal; The first Sisters well-worn trajectory for a young ‘girl venues in Tasmania - the University in performance space, in the world can Akousmatica artists: eves, Angie Garrick, singer’: be discovered and championed of Tasmania’s Mt Pleasant Radio be a radical one - but we do not wish Kate Geck, Rosalind Hall, Shani Mohini- by an older, male producer / A&R Observatory and Lisdillon, a property on to leave it at that. The aim of Sisters Holmes (with Georgie Darvidis), radio rep. I felt fiercely ambitious, creatively. the east coast of the island. The retreat Akousmatica is to pro-vide opportunities cegeste and Ela Stiles. But I was also fiercely independent was designed to do two things: one, take for women and gender-diverse artists and terrified of control being wrested Sisters Akousmatica are Phillipa artists out of their everyday lives and to work together: share ideas, tools, away from me. I chose to study audio Stafford and Julia Drouhin. They create pressures, in order to have space to think contexts, skills and knowledge in spaces engineering, so I could walk into any international curatorial and written projects and dream about their art practices; that are ‘heterogeneous, polymorphous, recording studio and know exactly what concerning radio art, auditory-spatial and, two, to create the beginnings of uncentered and rhizomatic’ [19]. all those machines did, understand signal exploration and the intersection of gender a new community of sound and radio paths and mic techniques, and faders By inviting practitioners to consider and emergent art forms. Through their artists. In the organic tradition of in- and EQ and effects. Initially, it was a exchanges around tools, distribution, projects they aim to support, promote and jokes, the unofficial slogan of Sound defence mechanism–arming myself with publication, workshop, re-treat, cultivate women and gender diverse voices Camp became ‘no one left behind’ - a knowledge against the assumption that performance, walks, installation and in public space. Focusing on the concept of statement that grew from situation where I had nothing beyond my face and voice broadcast experimentation, Sisters akousma – sound removed from its source one of the artists became stranded near to offer. But, I fell madly in love with Akousmatica aims to cultivate a – their projects provide a space to examine a coastal blowhole in an (un)lucky near- both the technical and creative aspects community of skills and resources sharing, the possibilities of invisible and ephemeral miss. However, this statement echoes a of production, and I realised that I was, forms and audible transmissions. radiophonic networks. Sisters Akousma-tica sentiment that characterises our collective essentially, a Producer. It was both gradual artistic and curatorial project umbrellas feeling and understanding of what we Acknowledgements and revelatory, the way that finding one’s their collective radio practices which wish for our practice as community identity often is. We would like to acknowledge the includes a live radio duo Super Occult builders. traditional owners of the land, Cosmophon, publications, workshops, Sound art industries tend to be a Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, public live art and community building Nothing changed my world like a laptop male-dominated fields and while there on which the first Sisters Akousmatica activi-ties. http://www.sistersakousmatica. and a DAW. Everything opened up from are many female and gender-diverse was performed and broadcast, and the org/ there: MIDI programming soft synths to artists, curators and theorists who are Muwinina people, the traditional owners hardware modular synthesis, sampling, doing much to upset this status quo, of the land on which we live and work. Time, Autonomy & Self- full arrangements and production of many artists are still working within expression in Sound Sisters Akousmatica has been assisted songs, sound design, mixes. Computer communities in which their presence is by Arts Tasmania, the Australian by Emah Fox music offers such incredible freedom, as a minority. Writing around sound and Government through the Australia and in a world where our autonomy still radio art is still dominated by the male I came to production as a singer–my Council, its arts funding and advisory needs to be fought for, it’s a natural fit names that contribute to the canon and instrument was my voice. I had a whole body and the City of Melbourne, Next for women to be drawn to electronica: understandings of the form. Women’s universe of sonic ideas in my head, but Wave festival Emerging Curators Program it offers freedom to play, to explore, histories and contribution are all too no way to communicate their complexity with Liquid Architecture, The Channel, to test out ideas and push them in often squeezed out and left in the fringes. to musicians and producers. I was 45 46 array special Artist Statements I Emah Fox 2017/2018 every conceivable direction. To have way those in the synthesis world talk emphasise most strongly (above and beyond The truth is that not knowing what a kernel of an idea, and see it through about music production: a kind of the breakdown of sound-physics and the hell you are doing can be the most multiple incarnations until it is its own one-upmanship display of knowledge signal-paths) is the importance of knowing exhilarating moment. This is one of living, breathing thing. The beauty of and gear collection, a race to prove the and internalising that You Do Not Have To the things I value most about working electronica is that I can try anything, seriousness of one’s skill and investment Earn The Right To Explore. This I think with hardware synths, and having access and the freedom to try is so incredibly (in the gear, in the scene). I work against is honestly the single most impactful thing to the vast MESS collection means important. Particularly when it comes to this in myself–that pressure to justify my people take away from the workshops. there is always a new beast to keep the song production, it’s important to be able presence and my work as ‘legit’–because Inhabiting a non-male body means that unfamiliarity fresh. The level of control to frame the raw and personal (lyrical as women our legitimacy in tech spaces you have learned early on you cannot take and precision available in a DAW like and vocal expression) within a context is called into question and scrutinized for granted that body’s presence will be Protools, Logic, Ableton, is incredible, that gives it power. Strong production more, alongside insinuations (or outright welcomed or even safe when you walk into but personally I find that I benefit from demands respect–it’s the bone and muscle accusations) of cruising on the ‘novelty’ a space that is dominated, statistically and balancing it against the unpredictability and skin of a song. I see music production of having a female body. Who produced energetically, by men. This is even more and play of figuring out something as akin to athletic skill–at its best, it is your track, who did your beats, who true for transwomen or non-binary people. new and less controllable. The lack of both artistic and muscular. A beautifully bankrolls you, what are you wearing, what As a cis-woman, I can speak to my own control is almost more important to me produced piece of electronica could be are you selling, gender/sexuality as a experience and say that as young girls we than the mastery of technology. There delicate and porous as easily as it could distraction, a ruse, a commodification. But are generally not encouraged to pick up is joy in mastery, but there is also joy in be dense and brutal. There are endless autonomy and self-expression can also be a piece of technical equipment and ‘have apprenticeship. In that sense, I have no choices to be made, myriad possibilities of explicitly about gender and sexuality. For a go’, and we are, more often than not, interest really in becoming the expert or where a track might wander. Remaining those of us making our way in the world actively discouraged. If we don’t clearly the master of any one particular machine open to the unexpected, listening to a with these bodies and experiences, why know what we are doing, we can be met or technique. For me, the interest and piece for what needs pruning for the the hell shouldn’t we want to make work with not only ridicule, but outright hostility. excitement comes from the immediate rest of it to thrive, what elements need that explores that? When your gender And yes, of course, the toughest and most engagement with ‘trying’. Trying gets reimagining to bring the whole into focus– is continually pointed to as an anomaly, passionately determined of us persist and a bad rep -‘Nice try’ has overtones of this is the artistry, the open connection whether as an aberration, a distraction succeed. But this is something I try to drive sarcasm, ‘Nice try, love’ adds a gendered to the intuitive. The muscularity comes or a nifty diversity point-score, it home when teaching: My dream is not just humiliation cherry to the cake. But trying with the confidence and ability to act on becomes something that is central to your to see more exceptional women reach the is the best part! that intuition, and translate it with some experience. The autonomy to create and top of their field. We have the right to be There is absolutely pressure on women accuracy. express freely that computer music offers just as mediocre as the most average of working in tech fields to be invulnerably should not be subverted by self-censorship men. Don’t enter into music production Time. Autonomy. Self-expression. Having proficient, if they want to even attempt to or subscription to the idea that to be a thinking you can only justify your presence the space to try something that doesn’t explore. To begin, you have to prove you serious producer you have to downplay through excellence. Take on that crazy- work. But that not-working might lead to are serious. To present work, you have your gendered experience. looking Buchla 200 system and see what something strange and wonderful, a dance to be able to back it up in the language sounds it makes under your hands. You down an unfamiliar path. In the synth workshops I run at the community understands. This is don’t need to know what you are doing to Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio unnecessarily alienating and frankly elitist. There can be an obtuseness to the experiment. Ltd (MESS), one of the things I try to Basically, electronica is FUN. Playing with 47 48 array special Aritst Statements I Emah Fox 2017/2018 a synthesiser, whether it’s a Moog 55 or another genre. to create more diverse line-ups or playlists, of women’ [20]. Change can happen and a second-hand microkorg, is play. Letting asking for recommendations–who is happening, but it absolutely needs to be I speak a lot about autonomy and it be play is so important. Chopping should I be listening to, who should I be nurtured and strategised and fed. independence. Should we have to do up beats, layering pads, pitch-shifting programming? My response is generally: everything ourselves to be seen as having field recordings, creating bass-lines here is a list of women and non-binary credibility? No. But with independence and melodies, sampling the shit out of producers and performers. Add them comes complete control–that’s something everything in your house and turning that to a spreadsheet. For every one of them that is important for women. We can own into a piece of music–all this is fun. And you approach ask them for another list of our work. Financially, creatively, legally, there is no right way to do it. names to seek out. Watch it grow. Don’t and in the eyes of the world. Having a just ask the best-known and the most I don’t have a background in music medium that offers me that choice, has established. Give opportunities to people theory or technique. When dipping been crucial. I’ve been the girl whose who have never played a show before, the toes into jazz or classical waters I have work was attributed to the dude on the way you would with an enthusiastic guy. never understood why rules were so periphery of a project. I’ve been the girl Eventually you won’t need to come to us to rigidly adhered to, or why my instinctive who has had production and management do this labour for you, you will have your approach was always, always ‘wrong’. I’ve deals fall through because I would not own diverse network. And, if you have a always been attracted to the strange and make myself sexually available to the collective or a community that is male- the experimental. Warping, stretching, men who wanted me. I’ve been the girl dominated and you want to shift this but sampling, layering harsh against lush, whose voice has been buried in the mix don’t know how–try some targeted paid cross-rhythms, dis-chords, shifting tempos because it’s grittier and less ‘pop’ (how marketing. Actively outreach to women’s and time signatures–the electronic field embarrassing that would be) for the vocals Figure 1. Emah Fox at Melbourne groups and queer groups and ask them allows for so much play, and so much to sound like an afterthought. I’ve been Electronic Sound Studios working on a what would make them more likely to get complexity. Electronica is built on the girl who has been told to be sexier, or Buchla 200 System. involved. Listen to their answers. experimentation, so to me, it’s intrinsically less sexy, if I want to be taken seriously. Emah Fox is a musician and producer a perfect feminist medium. The relative My story isn’t exactly unusual. The desire Diversity can be performative, and ‘female based in Melbourne, Australia, creating youth of electronica means that it doesn’t for autonomy and independence is born producer’ is a hashtag for the current synth-pop, abstract electronica, and Green carry the weight of centuries of white, from experience. zeitgeist. It’s amazing to see it celebrated Room Award nominated sound designs male institutional regulation–so the non- so widely, but we’re not unicorns and I I try to be transparent about how and for theatre. A passionate feminist, she male body, the non-binary body, the non- don’t want to be seen as one. I don’t want why I produce. It’s important to me that spoke on the 2016 LISTEN conference white body–so we cannot be silenced by to succeed in isolation, or to be the wizard there is a lit and open pathway visible to panel ‘Gender Diversity in Experimental accusations of perverting the traditional behind a curtain. I want to be able to be anyone who is interested in production. Arts’, and is the developer and facilitator order of things. There is no traditional transparent about my journey and my It involves sharing resources and of Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio’s order. All is experimentation, all is play, process and show others that they have just opportunities and skill-sharing, creating Synth 101 workshops for femme and non- all is in flux. That’s not to say that all is as much right to take that path as I do. I communities and online and offline binary people equal–it isn’t. But the access to autonomy want to hear others’ ideas and see them spaces to geek out, learn, rant and play. I is much, much simpler. I cannot imagine grow and morph and inspire. Suzanne am often approached by men seeking to feeling anywhere near as empowered by Ciani said ‘we need to create a critical mass 49 50 array special Artist Statements I References 2017/2018 References RoutledgeCourzn, 2001), 149- 168. [14] Toop, David. Ocean of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and [7] Lynch, Gordon. “The Role of Popular Wired.com. http://www.wired.co.uk/ [1] Emam, Nour. 21st Century Islam: Imaginary Worlds, Paperback, 2001 Music in the Construction of Alternative (accessed August 5, 2017). Towards an integration of Electronic Spiritual Identities and Ideologies”. [15] Stafford, Phillipa. All my world is Music with Sufi Worship Rituals. Journal for the Scientific Study of scaffolding, Honours exegesis, University Unpublished manuscript. Goldsmiths Religion. Vol. 45, No. 4 (Dec., 2006). of Tasmania, 2011 University of London, 2015 Accessed December 8th, 2015. http:// [16] Meyer, Ursula. “Conversation with [2] Frischkopf, Michael, “Social www.jstor.org/stable/4621930, 481-488 Robert Barry, 12 October 1969”, from forces shaping the heterodoxy of Sufi [8] Hammarlund, Anders. “Introduction: Conceptual Art, New York, E.P. Dutton, performance in contemporary Egypt”, An Annotated Glossary”, in Sufism Music 1972: 36-38 (37), in Kahn, Douglas. Earth in Music, Culture and Identity in The and Society in Turkey and The Middle Sound Earth Signal: Energies and Earth Muslim World: Performance, politics and East, ed. by Anders Hammarlund et al. Magnitude in the Arts, Berkeley, Los piety, Ed. by Kamal Salhi, (New York: (London: RoutledgeCourzn, 2001), 1-5. Angeles, London, University of California Routledge, 2014), 35-56. Press, 2013) [9] Özdalga, Elisabeth. Preface to Sufism [3] Touma, Habib H. The Music of the Music and Society in Turkey and The [17] Quote from ‘Rosalind Hall’, Arabs, trans. Laurie Schwarts, ed. by Middle East, ed. by Anders Hammarlund by Sisters Akousmatica. https:// Reinhard G. Pauly, (Portland, Oregon: et al. (London: RoutledgeCourzn, 2001). sistersakousmatica.bandcamp.com/track/ Amadeus Press, 2003), 109-138;152-167. rosalind-hall [10] Drever, John Levack. “Soundscape [4] Rouget, Gilbert. Music and Trance: A Composition: The Convergence of [18] Lewis, P.M. Community Radio - Theory of the Relations between Music Ethnography and Acousmatic Music.”. employment trends and training needs. and Possession, trans. Brunhilde Biebuyck, Organised Sound Org. Sound 7, no. 01 Report of transnational survey, AMARC (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, (2002). Europe, from Mitchell, Caroline A. 1985), 255-314. Gendered practices in radio broadcasting- [11] The recording of the live [5] Schimmel, Annemarie. “The Role of a critical study of cultures of management performance is accessible through Music in Islamic Mysticsm”, in Sufism & production, Critical Management Soundcloud using this link: https:// Music and Society in Turkey and The Conference, 1999. soundcloud.com/thisisnur/al-hadra/s- Middle East, ed. by Anders Hammarlund JNze7 (last accessed 30 September, 2017). [19] Neset, Anne Hilde Tangled et al. (London: RoutledgeCourzn, 2001), Cartography: The Mapping of Her Noise, 9-17. [12] Collins, Nicolas. Handmade accessed September 9, 2016, http:// Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware [6] During, Jean. “Sufi Music and Rites in hernoise.org/tangled-cartography/ Hacking. Taylor & Francis, 2006 the Era of Mass Reproduction Techniques [20] Lott-Lavigna, Ruby. “Synths and and Culture”, in Sufism Music and Society [13] Mowitt, John. Radio: Essays in Bad sexism: the female artists smashing in Turkey and The Middle East, edited Reception, University of California Press, through electronic music’s glass ceiling.” by Anders Hammarlund et al. (London: 2011: I 51 52 array special Conversation II Rebecca Fiebrink & Laetitia Sonami 2017/2018 in terms of the instrument, I had no idea and if so, what would an institution need - very important for Rebecca, who needs initially. We didn’t have any grants, we to do to create that sense of trust? some Camembert to get her going. Conversation II didn’t have any support, so was just more LS: I think it would need to have the RF: I was wondering how long it was meeting and discussing. I think it has been Rebecca Fiebrink and approach of a residency. It’s really going to be before you said something about three years now... Laetitia Sonami important to have people either live about that. RF: ...more than that, because I was still together or get to spend some time LS: I could publish a paper on this, ‘How by Patricia Alessandrini living in New Jersey together, because I think a lot of what to please Rebecca?’ So I can see that Note from the editor: I provided some questions we do is informed by everything that LS: I think that process was very luxurious it would be possible. I think it could be as a basis for this conversation between Laetitia is not part of what we are doing: I’m in a way because there was no deadline, something like two weeks, and it would be Sonami and Rebecca Fiebrink, who have been really interested in small gestures. A lot there was no funding, it was more through nice if it was also repeated, because things working together for several years in developing is informed through non-intentional a friendship, for me, really enjoying her change, and especially as we all work their own practices in electronic instrumental activity. If an institution was to create approach and her ideas and enjoying in different ways. It took me a while to design, machine-learning software, and the some kind of a space: not a lab, some being with her, that led to this organic design something that would make use of intersection between the two. Some of this work kind of a pleasant place – as for us in friendship. I think that it was also, because her ideas, to use it, to change it. So it’s not has been developed in Laetitia’s family home in Normandy - where people can have some I really didn’t know what I was going to like you say, I have this thing I’ve going to Normandy, where I had the chance to observe time to unfold and maybe think about do it, the fact of working with someone plug into this other things and it’s going to their collaborative process. things without having the urge to come who was not only curious but somehow work. That’s not the fun part, the fun part to a result, and accepting that it might go PA: What were your expectations in trusting that there was something there. I is to have your ideas evolve because of this nowhere. So I could imagine that it could working together, what were your goals, had experiences of trying ideas with other interaction, right Rebecca? happen where people would create some and how did those goals drive your people and they would say, ‘well that’s kind of discovery and I think that Steim RF: I agree with everything that Laetitia research? not going to work’, whereas Rebecca in a way was a bit like that, except that said so far. I think that ideally having would say ‘maybe, I don’t know, let’s see’. LS: There were no expectations people except the people had an idea for that space that feels like a residency, That’s find of Rebecca’s mantra, ‘I don’t actually, which has been interesting: a project and people would help with that that is recurring and long-term, without know, let’s see’. [Laughter] So in that way we didn’t have any plans of research. project. the pressure to immediately produce it was very unusual, because it was not Rebecca was already involved in her something, where you have the freedom institutionalized, it allowed for this kind of At the end of the day I think it’s really research, I became acquainted with to explore a lot of ideas and try things. really free approach to discovery. important to allow, again, for an the work she was doing and was really But also, I would add that institutionally environments where the researcher or fascinated. It was a very organic PA: How could you create that same kind I think there are so many barriers to that the composer does not have goals that process: she showed me what she was of environment - or do you think it is kind of work happening. At a university, are already determined because the tools working on and I started thinking about even possible - in an institutional context? for instance, the time pressure that are going to change how one thinks, the it and thinking about designing a new Starting with Laetitia, you worked at I’m typically under as an academic. friendship is going to change how one instrument that would take advantage STEIM [Studio for Electro-Instrumental One of the reasons that I love going to thinks, there are so many things that of the work she was doing. But even Music] for many years, can you imagine Normandy is that it gets me away from are going to change. So I guess, funding working in institutional context that way, the constant emails and people asking something in a nice place, with good food things from me every five minutes, and

5353 54 array special Conversations II Rebecca Fiebrink & Laetitia Sonami 2017/2018 asking totally different things each time. collaboration, we didn’t do a project: RF: When I started working with the really important technical issues that I think working at a university right now Rebecca has a whole full-fledged system Laetitia, the first version of Wekinator have come up, it’s really been largely - at least in the UK - you have a lot of and approach to instrumental machine already existed and had been used by through her use of the software and different responsibilities and your time learning, and the instrument that I few other people, and I knew that there giving feedback to me that I’ve learned is packed into little chunks and it’s really worked on is also something that is still in was something there, I knew that it was how to how to make it better. So that’s hard to intentionally focus on one thing development, if doesn’t have an end to it. something that could be useful; so I one outcome, I think it’s really substantial for a substantial period of time. So I would say the most concrete outcomes of outcome. So with Experiment in Art and think we’ve been successful in setting up a our work have really been a substantial Technology at Bell Labs it was more Beyond that as well, I have a much better structure where we can do the evolution of what the software does and project-oriented; but still, when you look understanding of musically, what these how you interact with it. I made a new visit issues around what kind of work gets at some of the footage of the time, it techniques could be used for; creatively, version of Wekinator a few years ago now rewarded within institutional systems. definitely had some of the fun of just why they might be interesting. I also and I remember synthesizing a lot of the I’m lucky to some extent at Goldsmiths trying things out...so isn’t really our case... think, Laetitia, the way that you think conversations that we had had, as Laetitia because being able to say I’m making about control, and your relationship RF: Because we don’t have fun? had been using the original version. I had software that’s being used to really to the instrument, or your role in the also been watching her experiments with make music, I’m making something LS: No, we do! I meant that it’s not as if composition and creation process has some prototypes of the new instruments, and learning over a long period of time at some point we say, now we’re done. really changed the way that I think about and I had been talking to some other what it’s good for and why we want to these things, and now when I give talks RF: I hope we’re not done. people using it in different contexts, for make this kind of thing, and that’s an to technical audiences about machine instance some people had been using it to argument that isn’t necessarily compelling LS: Definitely, I hope so too. So it’s very learning, that’s now one of the things teach, and I knew to some extent what I in the conventional computer science much like you said Rebecca, you have to that I talk about quite a lot, is trying to wanted to change about it but not exactly department. Right now I am in a come up with results to prove that you’re get people to question this assumption, how. department where there are people who not wasting important research time. I’m that when we make technology we want look at that as valuable, but still, it doesn’t not an academic but I know, I have a Laetitia was the first person to see some to make things that we can control more fit nicely into the rationale or into the sense of the pressure, and in my case it’s paper mock-ups, you’ll remember I showed efficiently. You’ve spoken really eloquently metrics that are increasingly becoming just I’m not going to make any money, you and said ‘hey, what do you think of about that not necessarily being your part of how we are assessed professionally. so it’s going to be something that I do to this?’, and that was a really early point primary goal and about the rich creative for my performances. So again, it’s a very of making a concrete design that started possibilities that are present when you LS: That’s interesting, I wonder when unique relationship, where we both agree to do things better, and that design has think about other types of interaction. there was the Experiment in Art and to do things... evolved over the last several years: things I think that’s a very foreign concept for Technology at Bell Labs, how they set up like, what does the user interface look like, computer scientists and machine learning and how they paired people, I’m not sure RF: ...that are important to us despite not how do you set up a new project, how do researchers, but I think it’s getting at the how that was done, how much time they having external incentives. you understand what’s happening, but also, heart of what technology could offer us have, because that would be interesting PA: I don’t want to be too goal-oriented how do you know whether something is in creative processes that for the most as an example of one of those meetings in this question, but what were you able to running efficiently. For me, knowing that part is being ignored. There’s huge set of or encounters. Although it’s different in achieve in your collaboration through this something is not running officially enough opportunities there, I think some really the sense that there was a project. In our particular way of working? can be very useful in real-time, addressing beautiful music and art to make. For 55 56 array special Conversations II Rebecca Fiebrink & Laetitia Sonami 2017/2018 me, even the more important outcome design and composition and performance much influenced by the fact that we are to computer music or human computer is thinking in a different way about the are integrally tied. two women. Maybe we need to encourage interaction venues. We haven’t done that role of technology and thinking more those relationships more. so far and I wouldn’t rule that out, but it’s In my case, I think that it was extreme, broadly about how we want to relate to it also quite interesting that it’s not a great in the sense that it meant completely I think part of it is just allowing people to as people. fit in terms of conventional academic rethinking everything I was doing in just interact and wander around without publications for the kind of conversation LS: We think we are going to create performance. There is obviously a range goals. It is getting to be very difficult to that we’re having right now. I think things that are going to allow us to control of how much one is willing to reinvent allow for the kind of interaction that is not again, the really important, exciting efficiently, when at the end of the day, oneself through technology, but in this based on some efficient result. In teaching, stuff for me is how we’ve come into new when you look at what happens, we have case it was really much more than I had we can see the same thing. If we tell understandings of what technology is been completely transformed by what expected: it completely changed how I students we’re going to do something, they good for, how to make better tools and the we use; it’s not as if it hasn’t changed am thinking and performing. So through say ‘what am I going to do this?’ I’m not impact that technology has on the music, anything about how we think. this process there was this totally new sure we would can embrace the possibility and the impact that technology has on us, way of thinking about performance, not of failure, it’s very hard for students as But for some reason, when we are in the and what we really value about everything from a theatrical point of view, but from a compared to the 70s or 80s. Now they pay process of creating, we don’t think about that in that space: that’s not really an compositional point of view. $50,000 a year. They think, well, this class this, we think it is going to allow us to do academic paper, but I think it’s important. is costing me $5000, and I have to go to this and allow us to do that. All of these PA: A totally new way of thinking of It’s important to have spaces where people work afterwards, so I’m not going to take a platforms that we’re use are actually performance: that’s pretty impressive. can have these conversations, and having class which doesn’t know where it is going. changing who we are. But for some these conversations in the way were LS: For most people it may look exactly reason it’s not really acknowledged at the In terms of a residency, it would need to are right now, in a nonacademic style, the same, but for me it’s revolutionary. beginning, that actually we are creating be curated somehow, to choose people who where we’re not referencing everything One of the things that that I was tools that are going to change we are. It are engaged in some practice otherwise. we are saying and trying to put it in interested in, which is rather ironic in would be nice if we thought a bit about You could create a situation where all these a really heavy theoretical framework, machine learning, was the machine not what we would be like to be, as opposed to people work together for say two weeks. we just speaking from our experiences learning: what if it never learns correctly? just paying the price for it afterwards. You don’t have to ask for results, there and articulating things that we have Most engineers might not want to pursue will always be results from people who are learned for ourselves over time. So in a To return to your question, in my case, this, to have the software do something curious. I think it would create amazing sense, I am glad we are doing this Array encountering Rebecca’s work completely it isn’t supposed to do. I think it makes results. conversation... changed the way that I was thinking about quite a big difference that Rebecca is instrument design, based on what she had also someone who is involved in artistic RF: I think another piece of art is also LS: We should do an academic paper, designed and what she had been working practice herself. thinking about what form results take. Rebecca. on. It’s almost as if I had learned the Certainly there are results that come out To go back to the institution, I think it’s RF: We should. piano for 20 years and now I’m playing of the work that we’ve done: there is the very important to emphasize a central the trumpet. It’s even more different new version of Wekinator and the updates PA: Well, maybe there needs to be a aspect: without wanting to limit to than that, it completely changed the to it, there are the pieces that you’ve space for this kind of collaborative categories of male and female, I think performance, it completely changed the made, but also, we’ve talked about writing work, showing examples of successful our friendship and our process was very instrument, because for me, instrumental academic papers together and submitting collaborations. Maybe it could be 57 58 array Conversations II Mari Kimura 2017/2018 something in between an academic paper, Computer Music Conference in 1992 a demo, and a performance. her software for real-time, interactive Artist Statements II in San José, California. Some of those LS: I think the process is interesting. When machine learning. who were there still remember my little Back to the bones: bringing Powerbook crashing on-stage about 20 I talk to people about how this came about a performer’s initiative to they are surprised really, because it’s not seconds into the piece. I had to stop so common, especially this bridging of the design and development and reboot my computer in front of the spaces. Most environments are successful of interactive performance audience (fortunately, a very sympathetic if they branch outside of their bubble, systems one). In those early days, people openly but it’s difficult because they have self- asked - presumptuously but not entirely sustaining systems. When you branch out by Mari Kimura implausibly – ‘Who is doing Mari’s and go outside, I think it’s so profitable. From the creation of the very first sounds?’, assuming I couldn’t possibly program a computer on my own. RF: That is something about our work musical instruments and instrumental together: I would go crazy if we didn’t performances, made by blowing into From this standpoint, I find that have a space to do this kind of work. hollowed bones with holes, the adaptation technological advances – perhaps driven In some senses, this is some of the of found objects has inspired us to by economic motives of software/ most important work to me, but it’s create music. Throughout the history of hardware companies – are not necessarily not necessarily the kind of work that instrument-making, players have driven responding to artists’ needs in their push is expected of me day to day, it’s not development, in relation to the needs for innovation. Thus the curious reversal necessarily the kind of work that lines up of societies and environments. Today, I mentioned: new interfaces, musical with the boxes that one is supposed to tick however, I find that the models of human- instruments, music apps marketed as ‘for – but I’m OK with that, as long as we get driven invention and development of musicians and artists’ are presented to us to do it. musical interfaces and instruments that before the artistic necessity or desire to trace their roots to antiquity, have become make music using them arises, without a somewhat reversed in our field, such that clear vision of who these ‘musicians and Laetitia Sonami is a sound artist and the tools themselves often seem to drive artists’ are. performer, whose sound performances, computer-music practices. live-film collaborations and sound Computer Music, with its ever-developing installations explore ideas of presence As a classically-trained violinist from technology, enables one to modularly and participation. Rebecca Fiebrink Juilliard, I took quite an unconventional add, combine, and create digital elements is a Senior Lecturer in Computing at path. For many years, I was the only and devices, providing a plethora of Goldsmiths, University of London, violinist I knew to perform at the level possibilities to creators. Naturally, the developing new technologies to enable of a concert violinist as well as compose creative process is vastly different from new forms of human expression, and do computer programming for my composing for a string quartet, for creativity, and embodied interaction, such own pieces. I wrote and presented my first example, where physical limitations are as Wekinator, her software for real-time, interactive composition at the at play. On the other hand, it is very easy to limit interactive computer music to

59 60 array special Artist Statements II Paula Matthusen 2017/2018 ‘what you can do’ technologically – or my interest in the combination of two together the threads of different projects portability and miniaturization of ‘what the software can do’ – thus creating motions: 1) functional movements made I have been interested in: from acoustic electronics. Without the necessity to artificial limitations along technological in order to produce sounds from an writing, to electroacoustic sound work in specific studios or around large, lines, rather than artistic or physical instrument; 2) expressive movements (or installations, to various theater, dance, cumbersome machines, one may roam contingencies. ancillary movements) that are created and collaborative projects. This grew out alone with any gear necessary in tow. typically as an artifact or just before/ of a natural consequence of a very early Regardless, I am drawn to situations that In 2013, I inaugurated the Future after the functional movements. The attraction to the possibilities electronics necessitate movement with others. Music Lab, a modest summer program combination of these two types of afforded, first introduced to me by Paul at the Atlantic Music Festival, with the Much of my recent work has centered movements, and other information from Rudy at the Aspen Music Festival in encouragement of pianist Bruce Brubaker, around field recording, often large systems the performance such as audio-associated 1996. This continued at the University of the head of the Piano Department at the that never yield themselves to any singular data, become very powerful tools, if they Wisconsin – Madison, when my classmates, New England Conservatory and a former type of interaction. Most frequently, this are analyzed and used effectively. I believe including Christian Zamora, Jeff Snyder, colleague at Juilliard. I wanted to permit has involved interactions with sites of it is the user - the performer - who can Ryan Ross Smith, Morgan Luker, Teresa high-level performers to be inspired by historical infrastructure in large cities. best choose which data to use, which Campbell, and Sarah Florino formed the new interfaces and new technology. The This began first with recording in the data may be relevant in the musical or performance art group 52 Splinters. To the students of Future Music Lab had the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel in Brooklyn, and artistic context and flow of interactive group’s benefit, Jeff brought with him an opportunity to use IRCAM’s Modular then expanded to include aqueducts in performance. This year, I joined the AKAI S3000 Sampler as well as the chops Musical Object (MO) sensor, which I New York and Rome. This has recently faculty of the Integrated Composition, to play it and accommodate our numerous came to use and compose with through extended to cave systems in Kentucky, Improvisation, Technology (ICIT) live-electronic whims. Live-electronics my collaboration with IRCAM’s Real in particular historical tourist routes in program at the University of California, quickly became a collaborative endeavor, Time Interaction Team, starting in 2007. Mammoth Cave [1]. The large breadth Irvine, which seems to be exactly the and a site of learning and experimentation. Since 2015, I have moved on from using of these projects has necessitated right place for me to be pushing ahead Through the pieces we wrote, spaces came MO to working on a custom Arduino- traveling long winding routes, often with in my research and the development of alive through feedback, a range of unusual based sensor system, in collaboration collaborators and friends, or people with interactive performance systems, from samples, and the use of conventional and with media artist Liubo Borissov at Pratt expertise on these spaces from outside of my perspective as both composer and unconventional instruments. Institute, which we call mugic. mugic uses music. performer. a motion sensor embedded in wearable Though the group no longer exists, these A large part of what makes these interfaces or objects - such as a glove, experiences continue to illustrate to Musical Spaces and the projects so enjoyable is that they serve band, stick, etc. – to extract expressive and me how communities can form around Radically Wishful as unusual meeting grounds. Much of functional movements of the performer’s such curiosities. My interest in space has the development of a particular project body. by Paula Matthusen remained unabated, though now many never makes its way to the final ‘product,’ of my projects involve a more sustained The Future Music Lab, now in its 5th In recent years, my artistic statements though this affords many opportunities engagement with the social aspects of year, has welcomed performers playing have focused on considerations of musical for the exchange of ideas, curiosities, and collaborating and recording. Sociality has a variety of instruments or with other spaces, whether they are real, imagined, above all, care. For this reason, I have always been embedded in the history of practices, such as singing or acting. In and/or remembered. This has been the been drawn to projects that embrace the electronic musics and ensembles, though the meantime, I continue to develop most convenient way for me to weave inefficient and the slow as a means of projects change with the increasing 61 62 array special Artist Statements II Silvia Rosani 2017/2018 inviting people to participate. This is not and then ricochet through the electronics. An Individual Note on followed by a performance for cello, live the only manner in which I work, though Greg, Stephan, and Scott recalled the Intersectional Projects electronics and resonating masks, which one which I find enormously pleasurable moment immediately when I described is shaped as a sequence of pieces for and often surprising, and it informs the it. For me, it is a wonderful surprise, by Silvia Rosani different forces. The recorded voices are uniting the exploratory electronics transported to the next performance site, more ‘conventional’ projects I return to. This statement describes how technology with human movement, introducing embedded in the texture of the electronic I am indebted to those who have very enabled me to develop an intersectional noise to the system while revealing how sound. White Masks also engages with literally opened doors for me (as well as project, White Masks. The project part of it works. This moment is also other technological means, in order to gates, freight elevators, manholes, among encouraged my development of a one of listening to someone else listen, deepen the intersectional aesthetics. other structures), and to the numerous composition/performance practice with cutting across temporal axes separating Sound analysis software is used to analyse musicians and collaborators who have live electronics. Through this my interest in performance and recording. the voices, so that they can be integrated traveled with me through them. The voices led me to develop interdisciplinary slowness of the path invites company and with other sounds, creating a surface In my own work and in my listening, I collaborations with other female artists. collaboration. Two people whom I have like a bas relief. Via the analysis, in fact, am interested in finding vulnerabilities of I will address how gender issues have traversed large distances with – Néstor I am able to collect information about systems: from the equipment and tools emerged quite naturally within these Prieto and Terri Hron – are forever the frequency content of a sound and, we use to interact with sound and spaces, collaborations, and have found space embedded in numerous recordings we subsequently, to impress the spectral to the large networks and infrastructures beside identity, class and colonialism have made together, and some of my envelope of that sound on another, so that hidden lying under the surface of daily through an intersectional perspective. The favorite recordings from these projects are the features of the first sound surfaces life. Opening up this vulnerability creates project highlights a parallel between ‘the the noises or ‘outtakes’ of our fumbling gradually from those of the second one. spaces for difference and interaction, ones socialities of musical practice and broader for equipment in the dark or excitement at The textual elements are resynthesised that may often fall outside conventional forms of social power’ so that the music hearing something unexpected. in different parts of the performance economic and social models. For these performance enacts an alternative and space through the use of big metal While reflecting on noise elements at reasons, I have been increasingly drawn ‘utopian social space’ [3]. panels, which are turned into speakers the 2017 conference for New Interfaces to keeping noise elements within my I discovered the need to connect the sound using contact sound exciters. The panels for Musical Expression (NIME) at the recording projects, as noise is often recorded in specific places, with the history are often referred to by the artists as the University of Aalborg in Denmark, indexical to specific times and places as of the inhabitants of those sites, in the work masks. They become humanised through Greg Taylor, Stephan Moore, Scott well and the bodies inhabiting them. I of other women composers and sound this sonic reconstruction and, after each Smallwood and I shared stories about am interested in pieces and performative artists. One example is Annea Lockwood, performance/installation, are gradually some of our favorite moments in systems that enact strategies of care, and who searched for the history of the lands closer to becoming a virtual community. experimental recordings. A moment in embrace elements that at first may seem through which flew the rivers whose waters’ The collection of voices resynthesised by Pauline Oliveros’s seminal work Bye Bye unusual as part of this care. In this sense, sounds she was recording [4]. Like Annea’s the panels grows the more the project is Butterfly (1965) has long been one of my we can be ‘radically wishful’, and imagine work, White Masks (2016) [5] connects performed, becoming richer and more favorites. Just prior to the introduction situations that do not yet exist, and in so the sound to the socio-political context in likely to mirror the variety of audiences of the recording from Puccini’s Madame doing can also imagine different means of which it originates. People interact with that the project meets. interacting with one another. [2] Butterfly into Oliveros’s stunning and the project via an interactive installation I first encountered click languages elaborate system of delays and oscillators, which facilitates voice recordings. This is one hears the needle drop on the record through the British Library Sound 63 64 array special Artist Statements II Silvia Rosani 2017/2018 Archive, which includes a 1966 recording academic artistic performance, why White Masks strives to reach new she chooses, and uses her work to reach of the voices of African women, while engineering and music communities. It audiences using a feminist approach that out to other women. This may be they converse about the life of women in hence provides an environment where encompasses activities which tackle social achieved by displacing performances postcolonial Africa, and a song by Kuela many binary opposites meet’. [10] inequality. For example, performances of from traditional segregated and elitist Kiema, who accompanies himself with White Masks always take place in public performance locations to public spaces. In White Masks, the boundaries between an mbira. White Masks was conceived spaces, which are accessible without a The relevance of this gesture lies both composer, performer and audience are in collaboration with cellist Esther ticket. As a female artist performing in in the non-exceptionality of the role blurred through the transformation of Saladin through a shared interest in click public spaces, for audiences who do not model, and the way the location of objects into speakers. The speakers are languages, and is an all-women project typically go to theatres, galleries or concert performance is used to broaden reception. distributed around the performance space, which later included visual artist Inês halls, I choose to use this platform, to I chose to quote Daphne Oram in the so that audience members can actively Rebelo [6]. communicate to young women, that they title of this statement to reflect the desire choose different listening perspectives. should feel encouraged to realise their to communicate to young women - The click sounds in Kiema’s song are, By being given the opportunity to record aspirations. This can be done simply through this work - that women do not resynthesised in White Masks by the cello their voices as part of the installation, through the act of the performance itself, necessarily need to be ‘exceptional’ to and live electronics. The relationships the audience briefly swaps roles with or more effectively with related workshops achieve a satisfactory career. Although among the African women, in the the cellist. During the performance, dedicated to female youths [14]. Bell she has served as a role model for later 1966 recording, are the basis of the the cellist also sometimes finds herself Hooks highlights the connection between generations of women in electronic structure of the piece. The title of the listening to the live electronics from a seat happiness and empowerment [15], and the music, it has always struck me that Oram projectis a reference to Frantz Fanon’s in the middle of the audience, while the workshops connected to White Masks aim reflected on her practice with great work Black Skin, White Masks [7], but composer performs. Role swapping had to empower young women through their modesty [17]. rather than addressing race matters, already been successfully experimented involvement with the project. When they it points to colonialism as one of the with at La Borde, a clinic led by Gilles By promoting their art in less elitist visit the university campus to record their causes of migration and displacement. Deleuze and Felix Guattari [11]. This environments or by creating accessible voices through the installation, prior to the A performance of White Masks, aims stimulates a process of ‘becoming’ venues, female-identifying artists can performance, they are not mere visitors, to provide an alternative imagined through which the unconscious turns reach other women and support them but part of a project whose realisation community, in which the usual hierarchies into a ‘force of flows and intensities’ [12]. in their effort to imagine a successful occurs on campus. The first contact with and social identities are subverted. Similarly, White Masks promotes the projection of themselves. White Masks these communities of women is usually Women perform with technology that exchange of roles between performer, also opposes economic classism by offering realised via one of their teachers, if they they control themselves, stimulating composer and audience. This operates audience members a free choice of seat: are in school, or local libraries. This may in other women in the audience within a broader feminist approach that whether to sit or not, and how close to the contribute to them perceiving Higher ‘’heterogeneous ‘becomings’’’ (as defined rejects dichotomies and, particularly, the sound source to place themselves. This is a Education as reachable rather than elitist, by Briadotti and Born in [8] and [9]). masculine/feminine dichotomy. contravention of standard theatres, where and also to think that it is possible, and the best seats are only affordable for the I use Essl’s words to illustrate another As has been demonstrated in Federici’s even not that difficult for them to become wealthy, while others have limited choices. use of technology in my project: ‘The work [13], gender and social inequalities part of an academic environment. By offering an open choice of listening field of new music technology also are so strongly entwined that they I conceive of a female artist simply as experiences, it is acknowledged that brings together academic research, cannot be addressed separately. This is a woman who is able to work in a field different kinds of listening attitudes exist. 65 66 array special Artist Statements II References 2017/2018 Within an intersectional vision, allowing [6] Rosani, Silvia. ‘’Non-human Political (New York: Routledge, 1994). the audience the freedom to move around Voices.’’ Schlossghost 1. Solitude. 29 [16] McCartney Andra. ‘’Gender, Genre the performance space, rejects binary September, 2016, and Electroacoustic Soundmaking oppositional roles such as performer and https://schloss-post.com/nonhuman- Practices,’’ Intersections 26 no. 2 (2006): audience. The opportunity to change political-voices. 30-48. the listening perspective or to access an art event with no admission fee, are all [7] Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White [17] Oram, Daphne. An Individual Note decisions that contribute towards fighting Masks (London: Pluto, 1986). of Sound, Music and Electronics (Oxford: gender inequality. Daphne Oram Trust, 2016). [8] Braidotti, Rosi. ‘’Teratologies,’’ References in Deleuze and Feminist Theory, eds. Ian Buchanan and Claire Colebrook [1] There are many organizations (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, without whom this work would not be 2000), 170. possible– briefly, the Brooklyn Historic Rail Association, the Friends of the Old [9] Born, ‘’Music and the materialization Croton Aqueduct, NYC Department of identities.,’ 380-81. of Parks and Recreation, the American [10] Essl, Georg. ‘’On Gender in New Academy in Rome, and Mammoth Cave Music Interface Technology.’’ Organised National Park. Sound 8, no. 1 (2003): 21. [2] In thinking about the ‘radically [11] Dosse, François. Gilles Deleuze and wishful’, I am broadly invoking Will Felix Guattari: intersecting lives (New Cheng’s Just Vibrations (2016) as it York: Columbia University Press, 2011). considers and evokes elements of care. [12] Braidotti, ‘’Teratologies,’’ 161. [3] Born, Georgina. ‘’Music and the materialization of identities.’’ Journal of [13] Federici, Silvia. Caliban and the Material Culture 16 no. 4 (2011): 376– witch: women, the body and primitive 388. accumulation (London: Pluto, 2004). [4] Rodgers, Tara. Pink Noises: Women [14] Born, Georgina and Devine, Kyle. on Electronic Music and Sound (Durham ‘’ Gender, Creativity and Education and London: Duke University Press, in Digital Musics and Sound Art,’’ 2010). Contemporary Music Review 35, no. 1 (2016): 1-20. [5] Silvia Rosani, ‘’White Masks’’, (blog), July, 2017, http://silviarosani.webs.com/ [15] Hooks, Bell. Teaching to transgress: projects. education as the practice of freedom

67 68 array special Conversation III Pamela Z and Atau Tanaka 2017/2018 cast a shadow. with ten channels. AT: Oh fantastic! like thunder claps. Another movement was my hand gestures with a vocal gesture PZ: Exactly. That’s certainly preferable PZ: Now he’s doing it at Gray Area. Conversation III attached to each. If you looked at the long over having it way off to the side or way [Gray Area Foundation for the Arts in end of the room, the video was crossing by Pamela Z & Atau Tanaka above your head. San Francisco] Do you know Gray Area? all three screens so that you had a 36-foot AT: I remember, Pamela, the first time AT: The scale, the dimensions need to AT: Yeah, I performed there last year! long arm. I saw you in concert it was the late 80s make sense. in San Francisco at Southern Exposure PZ: He’s doing Recombinant Media AT: Oh wow! That’s the body! The Gallery. And you were playing a big PZ: It needs to make sense, because I Labs there. It’s a movable system that’s human body larger than life - that’s plastic water jug. think of it as one image. My physical self dismountable, so he can put it up in that scaled! and this image that’s with me, and I’m room and then, for the next event, it’s not PZ: Exactly. And I created it for that PZ: And that plastic water bottle, working with it as if it’s a performer. there. to me, half of its impact was the situation where people were immersed in visual, not just the fact that it makes AT: Yes, it’s a single unified thing. You AT: Have you done a piece for the 360° of image so they had that feeling of a big booming sound. The visual was used the word immersion, and that’s quite Cinechamber? human gesture surrounding them. That important for me as well, to feel enveloped was really fun to do. important because I’m thinking about PZ: I did a piece there at Brannan Street in the sound, if that sound’s coming from gesture. I’m thinking about image. And in the old building. I remember I saw AT: What’s interesting, moving on gestures of my body. On that immersion now also I use video a lot in my work. many pieces there where people simply to talking about the body is, we as bit, we just created a new lab here at When somebody invites me to come showed ten copies of the same single performers perform with real bodies, but Goldsmiths called SIML, which is an play someplace and they’ll ask “Are channel thing. So, when I went in there, then, in your Sonic Gestures piece, there’s acronym for Sonics Immersive Media you planning to use video or not,” the I wanted to make something that was a representation and an expansion and an Lab. It’s a big black box space with video first thing I want to know is “how is site-specific for this space. I built a piece amplification of scale of the body. In your projection floor-to-ceiling on all four walls your video projection system set up?” called Sonic Gestures. It was ten channels case it was your own body. You were the around. In San Francisco there’s a similar Because, if there’s a screen that’s way of video, and each screen was different. performer. facility — you know Naut Humon— above my head, then I’m not going to It was an 18-minute thing that could PZ: Yeah, but then I expanded that too. do it. Because I don’t want to be in one PZ: Yeah Naut Humon. It was loop. It had four movements. One of When I made Sonic Gestures, the event of those situations where the audience Recombinant Media Labs. them started with handclaps. I had taken started with me doing an 18-minute live has to choose between looking at the high-end HD video with a distant, black, AT: And their Cinechamber. He’s come performance within the installation. So I visuals or looking at me. I want one duvateen background so that everything out here to consult with us on building was in the center and it was all around me immersive single image, and I want to was just floating. The arms and hands our studio. with the audience also inside. But then it be floating in this image. So it’s best if were floating on a black background. And could play on a loop, after that, without it’s rear projected and the screen comes PZ: Oh is that right? You know, Naut had every screen was a different handclap –not me performing. all the way to the floor. that facility over on Brannan Street for a ten copies of the same handclap. And I AT: Sometimes I don’t mind having long time. That was a really beautiful the slowed it down so that you could see the A few years ago, I made a piece called projection on my body as well, even if I way he had it set up there. Those were the hands approaching and impacting, and Memory Trace, and I actually had some days when the video was being played off the sound was thunderous, because that other pieces before that where I had of disks, and he had this hardware system room had those sub woofers. So it was multiple bodies on stage with me, but they

6969 70 array special Conversation III Pamela Z and Atau Tanaka 2017/2018 were all projected while I was live. I have other way of dealing with embodiment PZ: And the idea that it’s the presence – the PZ: So you and I both use these screens that are doorway-sized —sort of combining my actual present body with human presence, because that performer instruments that allow us to control human scale– so that you have the full these other people. is there. But, for someone in the nosebleed parameters of audio and even image stature of people placed at different levels seats, he or she is a dot on the stage and or whatever we want to control using AT: So in that case you need a one-to-one on stage. So you have an ensemble. then they have this gigantic representation. physical gestures. And I’m often asked, scale so the virtual bodies on the screen And there’s probably somebody with a “when you’re recording work in your I did a piece years ago [Voci, 2003] will be on the same scale as your real handheld – probably three or four different studio, do you still use a gesture controller where there were three screens and me body. cameras and somebody’s probably mixing or do you just use a keyboard controller performing live. In one section, I had four PZ: And my screens were like 7’ x 3’ so it’s it live… since nobody’s watching anyway?” And opera arias being sung simultaneously by as if the person is just standing there. my answer is a complex one, because four different singers, one of which was AT: …so there’s a whole TV production it depends on what I’m trying to do. If me. I really like that idea of these multiple AT: Whereas the one where you’re going on. I’m playing samples, and I’m doing this performers, some of whom are “virtual” focusing on your arm is like 36 feet I have a story about liveness and the body [making gestures], I will get a different and some who are actually live. (12 meters). Meanwhile video of a live and performance. Around the same time performance of those samples with a performer is used in a big rock ’n’ roll Another thing I like to do in my work that I saw your piece with the water jug gesture then I will pushing a button or arena or coliseum shows, because it’s far is to use speech fragments. I interview at Southern Exposure - this is when I was turning a knob or clicking something. It away the performers are so tiny that you people and take the audio of their speech studying at Stanford at CCRMA - I heard depends, if I just want to hear that sample have to watch them on a TV screen to and chop it up to make text collages that a CD compilation of computer music play from the beginning to the end, at a actually see them up close. become kind of an armature for the live and there was a piece by Michel Waisvisz, particular spot in the recording, I don’t performance, using fragments – from PZ: But that’s always been ironic to me who was the director of STEIM for a even use a controller at all, I just pick entire sentences to just a single word or that these people are paying $250 or number of years: and his instrument, The that sample up and drop it into ProTools syllable or even phonemes to build the something to get a ticket to see the star Hands. The album was all a compilation right where I want it. But, if I want to get music. So when I made Memory Trace a they like. And they’re just watching them of different composers of computer the nuance of the attack and repetition couple of years ago I wanted to carry that on a very big TV with probably not as music and tape music of the day… until and doubling and so on, sometimes these into video. So I asked a lot of different good of quality and resolution as they Michel’s piece came on. It was a very happy accidents – things you didn’t even people to come to a video shoot. I had would’ve had if they had just stayed home early version of The Hands in the late plan on – are much more likely to occur them all wearing black against a white and watched it on HBO. 80s where he was controlling a Yamaha when you use a very physical way of background. I asked them questions and TX-816 - a bank of DX7s - from his arm manipulating things. AT: But there are subtle differences I asked them to just give me lists about movements. But this was a CD so I didn’t because obviously that’s TV and it may AT: I agree totally. Once a piece is done memory or recite a dream they could have a video, I couldn’t see. There was take away from the true liveness and and I’m performing it from, for example, remember – things like that. I started maybe one photograph in the sleeve notes authenticity of the stage performance. the Biomuse, I will always perform if from editing the video interviews and cutting of the album, but by listening to the music At the same time, for us as experimental that whether I’m in the studio or when them the way I do with audio. And, it just sounded so visceral and so gestural. musicians and artists, we’re working with practicing at home or on stage. But it is in the live performance, I used their There were sounds that were swooping these very same media and playing with the context that does change. So if I’m bodies and their voices combined with and crashing in a way that was just very scale… just practicing at home I’m not going to me performing live. That was a whole different from the studio composed music. put all my blood, sweat and tears into it, 71 72 array special Conversation III Pamela Z and Atau Tanaka 2017/2018 but if I’m on stage it’ll feel more natural residue that gets left on the pavement fork sound, and then manipulating it in like sound. And then I’m singing the to get into it. Now, in doing a studio from emergency flares. When I perform ProTools. In performance I usually run it melody over that and, while I do that, I recording of a gestural piece of music, it’s the piece live, I loop and layer my own through my loops and put a little granular always manipulate the bottle in a circular hard because you don’t have the audience voice. I also use tuning forks, and I start synthesis on it. But, in the studio, I thought motion, because that’s part of the score, to pump you up. the piece by hitting these tuning forks “what if I boost the level and make it so to speak. Then when I get finished with together and actually touching the vocal much louder, or what if I reverse the that first verse I go into a section where PZ: Yeah there’s a certain feedback that microphone with them. And that goes sounds so that I get reversed attacks?” So I’m muttering. Kind of non-language, but you get even if it’s just the energy in the into the texture of the loops. And then I wound up with a very complex layer of language-y. That happens for a specific air. I’m singing and there’s one point where I tuning fork sounds which are much more period of time, but it’s not prescribed AT: Yes, the excitement of live start crackling bubble wrap and that gets prominent than they are in the live version exactly what the muttering is. I do a sort performance. To try to replicate that in into the texture as well. So, I’m recording of the piece. No one will get to see the of made-up language, as if I’m talking. the studio is…it is a studio recording so I an album of some of my solo works. And tuning forks, but they’ll hear a much more For years I did that piece live, and then I don’t need to replicate it totally. I decided that Flare Stains should be on manipulated and substantial sound from recorded it in the studio. It’s the first track it. I thought this would be so easy because them. on my record A Delay is Better. Then I PZ: I don’t know if you do this but, when I can just make one pass for each of the got to where I learned the muttering as it I record works from my live repertoire, AT: So the perennial question is: Is things that I usually loop, and just create is on the record. Now, when I perform it I deliberately create new things: new the recording a reflection of the live the loops in Pro Tools. And then I’ll sing live I can’t help myself, I have to do the sounds, new textures that I add to the performance, or does the studio production the melodic line over the top and add my muttering the same way that it is on the studio version, because a character is become so advanced that we’re wanting to text. And, as I’m working on it, I wonder recording. missing. Because, in the live performance, perform the recording? how to best record these tuning forks. In people have the visual of me. And that’s AT: We’ve both just been performing so live performance I just hold them against PZ: Exactly, that happens to me a lot. a pretty substantial layer of how they’re long we’re ready to make our own Las the microphone or the mic stand. And it’s The piece with the bottle that you were experiencing the piece. So, if I just make Vegas acts! different every time, because sometimes talking about, for example, involves the exact same sound that you would hear the venue provides me with a mic stand muttering. I frequently get asked how PZ! Exactly! You know it’s like the rock when I performed a piece live, but you that’s plastic and not very resonant, much improvisation is involved in the guitarist who has the guitar solo, then don’t get to see me doing it, it will seem as and other times it’s very resonant. The work. And I always tell people that these the record comes out, then everyone though something is missing. audience gets to see me making those pieces are mainly through-composed and, memorizes the guitar solo, so now, when So I tend to do arrangements in which I tuning fork sounds, so it’s OK if they’re if you see me do it from one performance they tour the song, he has to play the add a new layer. But then what happens is really faint after they become part of the to another, you’ll recognize that it’s the guitar solo the way it was on the record. that, when the recorded version is done, I texture. But when I’m in the studio I’m same piece. It has a structure, but there are AT: What’s interesting is, despite that, we fall in love with the recording. And then I thinking, “how do I record these tuning improvisational elements that are built into can still get sort of a spontaneous energy start thinking, “well how could I add that forks just so?” I must’ve spent half a day that structure. And, in that particular piece, into the performance. part when I’m performing it live?” trying the sound out on a wooden chair, or in one section, I hit the bottle, I capture the “what about on this stool?” So I’m pulling bottle sounds in three different delay lines PZ: …because you’re in the moment and So I’ll give you an example. I have a piece different objects into my little isolation that are all at different tempi so that you you’re physically performing it, you’re called Flare Stains. It’s kind of a sound booth and isolating each resonant tuning have out-of-phase loops of this bass drum- being moved by whatever emotional poem in which I’m describing the wax 73 74 array Conversation III Joanne Armitage 2017/2018 feedback you’re getting from the audience Sound writes upon the exterior surfaces and adding your own mood based on Artist Statements III and interior substances of the body with how you’re feeling that day. Sometimes an invisible ink that leaves its mark as it that muttering becomes a little love letter The Body in Sound evaporates and disappears. The invisible to somebody, sometimes I’m lecturing by Joanne Armitage presence of sound complicates the visual angrily at somebody… it changes from basis of intelligibility to underscore the performance to performance. Sound is grounded in the body. It is corporeal as an improvisational process a corporeal form in its conception, AT: For me that’s the kind of total of sounding, audition, (re)writing, and production and reception. Instigated by a immersive concert situation, whether transformation [1]. kinaesthetic motion, a physical movement we’re using video or not. It’s the feedback of an object in space—a step, a tap, a Performative practices involve affective or energy or intensity. stroke, a speaker. Sound moves through interactions between bodies—of Pamela Z is a composer, performer, and space as vibration. Sound is actuated and human actors, sonic gestures and media artist who works primarily with propagated through materials; through architectural spaces. There is a (feminist) voice, live electronic processing, sampled objects, air and you. It enters you and shift towards an embodied narrative sound, and video. She is the recipient is interpreted by you. Whilst complex in sound scholarship that relocates of many honors and awards, including mechanisms in the ear allow you to hear the ‘understanding’ of performative a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Ars sound, your body feels it. Your body moments from sonic materialities to a Electronica honorable mention. She will mediates your experience of sound. We lived, subjective experience [2]. Our be a keynote presenter for NIME (New interact with sound, it embeds within us participation within sound is not bounded Interfaces of Musical Expression) in 2018. and is sculpted by our physicality as we by the flesh, it is both interior and exterior. www.pamelaz.com form it. Sound is physical, it is formed and McCullen [3] discusses how Trombonist received as vibration. When the physical Abbie Connant was removed from her Atau Tanaka creates sensor-based sensations of sound go unnoticed they are position as solo trombonist in the Munich musical instruments and is known for his still embedded within us. Through sound Orchestra as she was considered to ‘not work with biosignal interfaces. His work we place and displace ourselves. Music is possess the necessary physical strength has been supported by the Fondation said to impart a visceral impression upon to be a leader of the trombone section.’ Daniel Langlois and the European the body, the emotional impact of this Her body was scrutinised in the context Research Council, and has received experience is a psychophysical response, of her sound, despite it being medically awards from Ars Electronica. Formerly but the physical is inherent, integral and confirmed that she had above-average Artistic Co-Director of STEIM in absorbed. In her thesis on improvisation lung capacity. Connant was forced Amsterdam, he is currently Professor and feminism, Smith echoes the above by to engage further with her sensuous of Media Computing at Goldsmiths, conceptualising the touch of sound on the body and dealt with the stress and University of London. www.ataut.net body—highlighting its invisibility and its trauma of her situation using corporeal convergent and melding quality. practices. Our bodies occupying spaces in hegemonic structures whether it be

75 76 array special Artist Statements III Joanne Armitage 2017/2018 be orchestras or technologies is not only a Physicality and embodiment have been interaction. The temporal detachment and work set out to address. physical, but a political act. continually explored facets of live digital disconnect within live coding movements, Originating as an approach to music creation, with designers working when viewed as a performance gesture, The feminism of my practice is enacted comprehending the data being sent to unpick the performer-instrument is fertile ground for exploration; not only through this exploration of embodiment, out of the machine, in performance, relationship in the digital realm. This the notion that the performer reveals and further demonstrated in the the system grew to be a novel way of work has produced a plethora of weird their plans prior to their inception, but politics of my approach—attempting to reflecting pattern. In relation to this, and wonderful new interfaces for musical the disconnect inherent in temporal flow move away from tools and towards an I found that the system facilitated a expression. From the Radio Baton to being mediated by the laptop. In Key, I embedded techno-sound practice that flexible way of coding SuperCollider the reacTable [7, 8]. In my practice, consider the keystrokes of live coding in the focusses on the sensuous. Such notions patterns into vibration. Moreover, I I have explored approaches to using context of expressive performance gesture, have been argued by Cusick to destabilise found that it directly influenced my vibrations as a mechanism through and present a technological approach to the mind/body ‘problem’ centralising performance decisions, thus narratives, which I can extend my improvisational amplifying, or highlighting them in live the performing body in performance through connecting the listener’s body laptop practice by rendering extra- performance. I developed an array of and emphasising corporeality. She to the underlying performance process. musical physical experiences for the vibrating motors that allowed me to render suggests that an ‘emphasis on corporeal Audience members were mediating the audience. In this next part, I will discuss my keypresses as physical vibrations to performance can relocate music away performance by visibly responding to the ideas pertaining to sound as a physical audience members. from the “mind side” of Western culture, motors, which influenced microstructures and embodied practice, and the ways toward a space that includes mind and I extended this notion in It is only MIDI, of my improvisation, but also by leaving that I have explored this through body’ [4]. Such approaches touch upon a work where MIDI data controlling and entering the chair on stage, which developing conceptual systems relating themes of intimacy and embodiment. The synthesisers is translated into physical caused me to change my flow, affecting sonic and physical materials. During the moment of a performance is a tactile/ vibrations that play across the listener’s the macrostructures. I began to consider production of this work, central themes of intimate act [5], but as the ‘physical body—it acts as a vibrating piano roll. The performing something that is physically embodiment, mediation and immersion rendering of creativity’ is absorbed into motors are placed on a chair on stage and interesting that could be separate from emerged. the digital realm, the relationship between audience members are invited to sit on the sound. Using this performance performer and audience has evolved— Key (2015), is a performance system it and feel the physical renderings in the system, I am connecting the listener to and some argue has become abstracted. that extends the connection between the performance. Improvisation is inherently the MIDI data output of the computer, The porous space from physical to physical gestures of laptop performance collaborative and this was heightened as opposed to Key where the keyboard digital can be blurred through tactile and the listener using haptic feedback. using the vibrators. As a performer, I had input is rendered as vibration. By technologies. With the popularisation of As a highly- mediatised laptop-based anticipated that the performative challenge bringing abstracted MIDI data into the sound installation as practice, there has improvisation practice, the physical would be to explore creating a disparity, fore, the vibrations in this work function been an increasing focus on the body and human gestures of live coding are often and sense of abstraction between the to create a sense of presence as to the its space and place within the listening just small motions. Between the performer ‘heard’ and ‘felt’ versions of the MIDI note underlying processes controlling a sound experience. This reimagining of the sonic and their instrument, this interaction is information by altering timbral parameters by amplifying them. landscape has drawn the listening body a small surface area of skin on the finger on the synthesizer. Through testing and more closely into the sonic revealing new making singular temporal connections performance, it became apparent that the opportunities for ‘embodied listening’ [6]. with a computer keyboard. To summarise, novelty of the experience was engaging it is a kinaesthetic movement with a haptic listeners above the conceptual issues the 77 78 array special Artist Statements III Amble Skuse 2017/2018 Rendering the action of coding as names which have been ‘noised’ out of Encephalomyelitis, also know as Chronic Being unable to tell your story is a living something physical to the audience musical history, disappearing into the Fatigue Syndrome) I am interested in the death, and sometimes a literal one. If members reconfigures the role code background. Noise, our voices become limitations of the human, of durational no one listens when you say your ex- plays in the digital realm as the haptic noise, our names become noise, inaudible, performance, of endurance. husband is trying to kill you, if no one element brings the physical body to unheard, filtered out. hears you when you say help, if you The piece was developed as a response the fore of the experience. I embedded don’t dare say help, if you have been BALANCING ACT is a live processing to the under representation of women myself into the work through the trained not to bother people by saying piece performed by Amble Skuse and composers both in musical educational vibrations and used technology to extend help…[Women] are subject to irrelevant laptop. It takes the names of over 1500 institutions and the concert hall as my reach to those that I was playing criticism whose subtext is that women female composers names and layers described by Mohr-Pietsch [9]. Research with and for. My practice encourages should not be here or heard. [10] them into white noise. It brings those for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra bodies to be aware of themselves in names to the concert hall, presents surveyed the top 22 orchestras in the This unlistening, this unspeaking, reflects relation to the sonic environment and them though the computer’s interface, US and found that only 1.8% of their throughout our culture, and impacts on using vibration technologies to reframe and asks us to honour those names performances were of pieces by women. women: from such violent acts as domestic the flow of our sensory interactions, to which have been ignored, removed, or Mohr-Pietsch states that although around violence all the way through men taking rupture and recode how we experience forgotten. I then attempt to speak as 40% of living composers are female, only credit for women’s work and ideas, to a phenomenon. My work is neither many of those names as possible over the 17% of names on music publishers’ lists refusing to listen to a woman when she representational nor mimetic of real world computer’s generated sound. An EEG are female. In response to these unspoken says that there are plenty of female tactile interactions, but instead echoes headset (electroencephalogram) measures names and unheard works, BALANCING composers to draw inspiration from. and synthesizes aspects and dimensions of my stress levels and uses this data to ACT seeks to raise the issue of the gender- ‘other’ to relocate a ‘form’, transcribing The Piece control the balance of the track and the washing of composition history. it as touch. It intends to engender a sense microphone. I began creating the piece by creating a of presence in the user, within which, I use the voice to reference the ritual list of names of all the female composers I hope it gives rise to a greater physical Conceptual Framework power of speech, and link to the powerful I could find from online sources. These embodiment of their experience. Instead archetypes of the wise woman, the healer The piece explores a balance between names were sorted alphabetically by first of asking, ‘What do we feel?’ my work and the witch. The speaking of these what I can do and what the computer name (referencing Lucy Stone and the considers ‘What could we feel?’ Within names restructures reality and creates an can do. It explores ideas of human vs problem of patrilineal surnames). I then that, I reveal techno-futures and synthetic intervention to bend the universe to their computer, and the cyborg (human + used my computer’s speech application to ways of being within a creative artefact. will. computer). I pit my ability to read all the read out the names and routed the audio BALANCING ACT: Noise names in the given time against the rising In the piece, the computer speaks the into my DAW. intensity of the computer, which tries to names. As the computer speaks it, it Counterbalancing Silence I layered these voices to disturb the drown my voice out with noise. must be true. This aspect refers to the experience of listening. I doubled up the phenomenon of women who are not by Amble Skuse For me this references the exhaustion layering process, to reference ‘memory’ in believed until their position is confirmed by BALANCING ACT is a ritual, a spell, of trying to keep up with a schedule terms of digital storage and capacity; 4, 8, a man (or in this case, by a computer). As a mantra, an experience, a collective which is not designed for human activity. 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, etc. Rebecca Solnit has noted: endeavor, a remembrance act for female As a composer with M.E. (Myalgic As each layer is created the names become

79 80 array special Artist Statements III Amble Skuse 2017/2018 more indistinct, it becomes more difficult voice being heard over the backing stressed. These two states control the faders (This process comes with the caveat that to pick out the meaning of each layer, and track. The balancing of the two tracks of the two different tracks. The balance of those contributing the names are within a the words being spoken. Our cognitive is controlled by a max patch and the the tracks means that the calmer I become, certain circle of audience who will come processing is pushed to listen to all these readings from an EEG headset I am the easier it is to speak over the computer. into contact with my work. There is also names until we are no longer able to pick wearing. Although the headset controls a facebook and twitter call for names, This performance choice references the out the words. As I listened, I noticed I the faders, the data received from it is which widens the pool a little, but it is still ‘tone policing’ of women. According to began to shift my listening perspective dependent on my emotional state. problematic in terms of reaching different Bailey Poland, the act of criticizing the tone from the communicative to the auditory. demographics. In this way it requires The headset has 7 sensors: 5 EEG sensors of the delivery of a complainant diffuses further consideration to be free of my Sine waves serve as an alert, a summoning and 2 accelerometers. The EEG sensors the message. [11] This silences legitimate influence.) As the audience contribute the of energy and a direction of focus. Their detect electrical activity in the brain complaint by demanding that it is names, I do not impose my idea about the purity and intensity driving the listener across all 5 bands of brainwave activity, delivered within a certain set of emotional value of a composer’s work, what genre towards and away from the sound. The Delta Waves (deep sleep), Theta Waves parameters. This part of the performance we consider to be ‘real composition’ or discomfort in the pitch and volume (drowsiness, light sleep, visualization), references the attempts to ignore critiques the race, religion, sexuality, disability, first challenges the listener to maintain their Alpha Waves (wakeful relaxation), Beta around the lack of female composers language, or gender identification of the focus in this intense battle between sound Waves (active thinking and problem in concert programming, citations and composers. This is important in order to and celebration of women. I chose to use solving) and Gamma Waves (acute mental teaching by undermining the complainant’s counteract a modernist or hierarchical sine waves to reference the pioneering activity and consolidation of information). ‘emotional’ and ‘unreasonable’ state. approach to who becomes remembered. women who were at the forefront of The headset connects to the laptop via During each performance, I ask all the Who are the gatekeepers and who are developing audio technologies, women blutooth. I then use Terminal to route female composers and music makers in they keeping out? Who defines what who worked directly with pure generated the data to UDP. Once in MAX/MSP, the audience to email me their name, and criteria we use to decide value in our sine waves, such as Charlotte “Bebe” I route the data into the fader controls. everyone in the room to email the name artform? Or to put it more clearly, ‘Who Barron, Daphne Oram, Ruth White, I use the most dynamic of the 7 EEG of a female composer or music maker who decides what makes art good’? [12] Maddalena Fagandini and Eliane sensors, and feed it into the patch. The has inspired them. Using a simple code, Radigue. The reading of the work falls somewhere patch reduces the low level background the laptop then automatically parses the e between electronic music and During the performance, the list of names ‘noise’ and then splits the data into two mails into a .txt file and adds those names performance art. Whilst the first of these is shown on a screen. As the names pass I groups. Data which results from being to the piece in real time. In this way the art forms has a long held problematic try to read as many names as possible into stimulated or stressed (which presents as a piece grows with every performance and relationship to women, performance the microphone. The effort of speaking higher numerical output of between 600 becomes a living archive which says “She art has spent decades exploring identity over the computer not only references my and 800) and data which comes through WAS here”. politics, contextual performances, gender, experience of having M.E., but also the when my mind is calmer (which presents The input from audiences offers an feminism, intersectionality and anarchism. effort of women to counteract the gender- as slightly lower figures, between 400 alternative way of collaborating that does washing of the music industry. and 600). I split these two states into two The performance of the piece is a not rely on hierarchical ‘gatekeeping’ groups: above 600 and below 600. This dynamic response both to the silencing of The dynamic of the computer’s part patriarchal structures. This collaborative ‘smoothed’ data then gives a reasonable women’s contributions, and the silencing varies throughout the piece. This structure is more akin to anarchism based picture of whether my mind is calm, or of women’s complaints about the silencing modulates the possibility of the human on non-hierarchical free associations. 81 82 array special Artist Statements III Annie Goh 2017/2018 of their contributions. surface of electronic music scenes in the [14]. The conceptual framework of the secured, having referenced Iannis historical debates of cyberfeminism since piece was a playful deconstruction of the Xenakis’ in the programme text. Despite Why Sonic Cyberfeminisms? the mid-1990s [13]. At the time, it seemed prefix ‘gen’ shared by generative music all the posturing of the serious-computer- by Annie Goh pertinent to highlight how getting overly and gender. In the blurb text for the music-performer, my experiments with pre-occupied with a feminist agenda performance I had written: Gendy/Gendyn and theorisation of The very nature of specialism or a concerned only with fixing gendered to what extent the “gen-” prefix of ‘The project GenDyTrouble has specialist field, such as computer music, disparities, we neglect to address the generative sound/music could be collided its beginning point in the common is based on the logics of inclusion and very categories which we think with and with the concept of gender performativity etymological ground between generative exclusion. I propose thinking through through, such as “male,” “female,” and famously put forward by Judith Butler, art/music and gender (Latin: genus, Sonic Cyberfeminisms as a way of “gender” itself. were done in earnest. Even playfully, I generis, generare, Greek: genos, gonos). examining these processes more closely. thought it a worthwhile endeavour to In late 2015, in part spurned on by It performs a symbolic collision between My own practice, writings, and curatorial break through the rigidities of “pure, these discussions, I conceived of a multi- Iannis Xenakis’ “Génération Dynamique activities have been engaged in doing so natural, harmonic” sound (as Xenakis channel sound performance which I gave Stochastique” approach to waveform in various ways. Thinking about feminist had aimed to do with Gendyn) and relish the title: GendyTrouble: Cyber*feminist synthesis (shortened to “GenDy”) and practices in computer music, is misguided, in the artificiality of brash, unnatural, Computer Music. I performed the piece Judith Butler’s foundational work of queer if we don’t reconsider the meaning of synthetic waveforms. The epistemic form for the first time at a mini-festival called theory “Gender Trouble” and seeks to computer music itself. of sonic naturalism was being replaced Sexing Sound: Gender, Sound, Music in understand generative processes as a by that of sonic artificiality, and it felt In 2014, I organized a panel at CTM Chicago. I recall taking my place at the source of emancipatory potential. The exhilarating! Festival in Berlin with the title Sound, beginning of the concert at the University impetus of computer music’s fascination Gender, Technology – “Where To” With of Chicago’s Logan Hall. As per my with generative processes and algorithmic However, my later discussions along lines Cyberfeminism?. It was an attempt to request, a 7.1 channel sound system had composition is re-interpreted using sonic of sonic cyberfeminisms, have led me to discuss the role of gender in electronic been installed. The concert hall was transformations as a metaphor for the other considerations. Namely, poking fun music beyond the debates around the dark and the main light source was the construction of gender.’ at computer music and its seriousness (lack of) representation of women which glare from my laptop, which bounced is one thing, and juxtaposing it with As I began playing the four short pieces had become prevalent at the time. The off my face, as I stared studiously at the Judith Butler’s notoriously difficult to I had prepared, Gen(d)erate Anew, guests of the panel were: Sadie Plant screen waiting for absolute quiet before read Gender Trouble was a kind of punk Microfeminine Sonic Warfare, The Battle (writer, author of Zeros and Ones); beginning my performance. I had worn provocation, a collision of two erudite of the Cybersexes, and Meditation on Susanne Kirchmayr (DJ and producer my hair slicked back in an androgynous figures from computer music and feminist Reproductive Labour, I (self-)consciously a.k.a Electric Indigo, founder of fashion and I was wearing all black. As I theory respectively. At the concert I took part in a tradition of highly- female:pressure); Fender Schrade (media waited, I channelled the seriousness of all was praised for the weird sounds I had conceptual, stylized computer sound artist, light and sound engineer); and the “computer music” concerts I had been produced, and the fairly complex multi- design, and multi-channel spatialisation. Marie Thompson (academic and sound- witness to over my adult years. I wore no channel spatialisation I had orchestrated. [15] Many of the pieces were based on maker). In an article for the CTM Festival expression on my face, nor did I put any I got some laughs from the audience sound experiments I had made around magazine, entitled Sonic Cyberfeminism overt bodily expression into my physical for the piece “Battle of the Cybersexes” the Gendy/Gendyn wave-form synthesis. and its Discontents, I tried to situate actions. This performance was an ode to which featured real tweets from feminist [16] I knew my nerd stakes were somewhat gender inequalities palpable on the the archetypal computer music performer activists and men’s rights activists being 83 84 array special Artist Statements III Annie Goh 2017/2018 read out in computer voices in a real-time intersectional from its very core – that is provides the world’s largest technology of the workers of Silicon Valley such algorithmic race to victory. Yet there was to say, troubling gender means troubling company with one of its most well-known as Karen J. Hossfeld’s, reveal in-depth something strangely dissatisfying about race, class, sexuality, ability norms, resources, and whose sisters (literally how precarious, low-paid labour is staying within the established boundaries transphobia, and more too. In Sadie or metaphorically) provide the labour predominantly provided by working- of computer music; ultimately, there was Plant’s famed treatise Zeros and Ones, assembling circuit-boards, figure crucially class black and brown women whose no real blasphemy in splicing Butler with a key ‘cyberfeminist’ text, it is the figure in the supply-chain of the computers subordinacy is maintained by explicit Xenakis. In a recent private conversation of Ada Lovelace – the first computer and microchip devices we “computer gendered and racialised logics of their with Robin Buckley, who released Brostep programmer before the invention of musicians” use in our everyday life. white male managers [22]. Yet, this in the Style of Florian Hecker in 2017, an computers as we know them today – knowledge, as with the oft-recited statistics In 2016 and 2017, I co-organized a series eight channel composition using dubstep who leads us through the narration. of the environmental, economical, of events with my friend and colleague preset bundles to emulate Hecker’s work [18] As impressed and inspired as I was sociopolitical wreckage caused by the Marie Thompson, around the theme of (referencing Florian Hecker’s 2009 work by these descriptions of Lovelace and mining and processing of rare-earth Sonic Cyberfeminisms; these included a Acid in the Style of David Tudor), we her work when I first read this book in metals, does not need to revert into a month-long online reading group called shared how this type of provocation – late adolescence, no doubt contributing privilege-fragility in which “bad, rich Decolonizing Sonic Cyberfeminisms, whilst fun – ends up falling somewhat flat. to my desire and attempts at learning Westerners” should feel guilty of using a panel-event called Doing Sonic In an essay assessing a potential radical, computer programming myself, re- and profiteering off multiple channels Cyberfeminisms: Strategies of sonic political reading of Markus Schmickler’s reading Plant’s text today, I notice of exploitation running from the Global resistance, and a two-day conference 2010 album Palace of Marvels [Queered another important figure which haunts South deep into the economies of the entitled simply Sonic Cyberfeminisms. One Pitch], Buckley questions to what extent the book – the telephonist, the weaver, Global North. Such self-castigation is of the topics which emerged from these aesthetically and in terms of temporality the circuit-board assemblist: the female empty without any concerted action or discussions was: it bears reminding that Schmickler’s project can be reconciled labourer. This much less glamorous figure, effort to understand and address such technology is not just computation. The with larger radical queer narratives to less brilliant, less uniquely talented, but exploitative mechanisms which make-up very notion of “computer music,” even conclude that, ‘despite hints of specific more essential to the continuing hi-tech the reality of the global technological in the distance it takes from “electronic kinds of politics (an alternative canon global microelectronics economy surely economy. The binary thinking which music” in its privileging of computational or queer time), it never really distances deserves greater attention. At the same retorts defensively with charges of processes, elides the often uncomfortable itself enough from an apolitical message, time during which Lovelace became ludditism and the exasperated outrage are roots of our conceptions of technology. reproducing white, masculine and a figurehead for initiatives supporting precisely the sentiment which counteracts The focus on the micro-level of digital capitalist models’.[17] women and non-binary programmers all the serious efforts – strikes, protests, audio signal processing in the history of and technologists, consumers complaints campaigns against exploitative labour So what would it mean to really transgress computer music has led to the growth to Google were recorded about the pink- conditions across all sectors – to enact the comfort zones of computer music? of an implicit hi-tech edifice of the field, latex-covered fingers of womens’ hands meaningful change, however small or Remaining in the abstract and the which when left uninterrogated, appears which can occasionally be unintentionally large. hi-tech certainly didn’t proffer much as pure and apolitical as the micro-chip glimpsed as part of Google Books’ huge by way of conceptual defiance in my itself – that is to say, not only deeply Sonic Cyberfeminisms, then, is a way scanning and archiving project [19]. own performance. If I want to take embedded in systems of capitalist, white of understanding better the logics of These ‘vanished ladies,’[20] poorly paid seriously the idea of troubling gender, supremacist, ableist, heteropatriarchy,[21] inclusion and exclusion which are at play. women of colour in Silicon Valley, whose as Butler exhorts us to, this needs to be but party to constituting them. Studies These logics appear similar across hi-tech 85 86 array special Artist Statements III References 2017/2018 fields; the white, male heroes of Silicon social division. Perhaps, the prefix ‘cyber’ [5] Spain, Kent De. “Improvisation and [14] In 2016, I wrote a short Valley mirror those of computer music. As - in the Greek sense of steersperson intimate technologies.” Choreographic article with the same title as the Michelle Wright describes in the SubRosa originally evoked by Norbert Wiener[24] Practices 2, no. 1 (2012): 25–42. performance, published in n.paradoxa cyberfeminist publication Domain - can be understood in terms of the feminist art journal. Goh, Annie. [6] Ouzounian, Gascia. “Embodied Errors!, as uncomfortable as it is to admit, flows of control and communication, to ‘GenDyTrouble: Cyber*Feminist Sound: Aural Architectures and the Body.” Western notions of “technology” are very invest a fluidity into the intersectionality Computer Music’, N.paradoxa: Contemporary Music Review 25, no. 1 often, and near completely, imbued with at the core of sonic cyberfeminisms International Feminist Art Journal 37, (2006): 69–79. inherent progressivist ideas premised on [25]. Perhaps sound itself as a powerful no. (SOUND?NOISE!VOICE!) (January white superiority. Evident in the writings affective force can too be harnessed for [7] Matthews, Max. “The Radio Baton and 2016): 78–82. about America’s “digital divide” in the era these purposes. Given the pleasurous Conductor Program, or: Pitch, the Most [15] This composition and many others of hi-technological expansion between adventures of computer music and Important and Least Expressive Part of would not have been realized without the white middle-class and working-class the transformative potential offered by Music,” Computer Music Journal 15, no 8 kind and patient help of my teachers and black people in the late 1990s, Wright feminist approaches; sonic cyberfeminisms (1991): 37–46. classmates at the Universität der Künste traces how, ‘technology is deployed as the can be an opportunity to radically re- [8] Jorda, Sergi. “On stage: The Reactable Berlin in particular Alberto de Campo, latest chapter of evidence for Western think and re-make existing configurations and Other Musical Tangibles go Real,” Hannes Hoelzl, & Constantin Engelmann. superiority’[23]. As sanitised as our hi- of sound, gender, and technology. International Journal of Arts and technological devices might arrive into our [16] I composed my piece in References Technology 1, no 3 (2008): 268–287. hands, in considering how feminist and SuperCollider, originally released in cyberfeminist approaches to computer [1] Smith, Julie Dawn. Diva Dogs: [9] S. Mohr-Pietsch, Women Composers: 1996 by James McCartney. Xenakis music might manifest themselves, sonic Women Sounding Improvisation. PhD Genius is Gender Blind – and So Should refers to GenDyn as the short form of cyberfeminisms will need not only to Dissertation, University of British We Be, The Guardian, 5th March 2015. ‘Génération Dynamique Stochastique,’ agitate within the confines of computer Columbia (2001). a technique for generating sound using [10] R. Solnit, Silence and Powerlessness music, but also beyond its direct reach. dynamic stochastic processes to determine [2] Stover, Chris. “Musical Bodies: Go Hand in Hand – Women’s Voices Must the points of a waveform. The three Sonic cyberfeminisms, perhaps despite Corporeality, Emergent Subjectivity, be Hear,. The Guardian, 8th March 2017. implementations of the technique in implicit connotations of a nostalgic 90s and Improvisational Spaces.” Journal of [11] B. Poland, Haters: Harassment, SuperCollider by Nicholas Collins are hi-technology sheen which the prefix Media and Culture 19, no. 1 (2016) ISSN Abuse, and Violence Online, Lincoln, : named Gendy1, Gendy2 and Gendy3. “cyber” imbues it with, is an attempt 14412616. University of Nebraska Press, 2016. [See SuperCollider help files for more to engage critically with sound, gender, [3] McMullen, Tracy. “Corpo- detail]. It is also worth noting that “gen~” and technology in a multiplicity of ways. [12] Perry, G. 2013 Grayson Perry’s Reith Realities: Keepin’ It Real in “Music and is also an object in Max/MSP not related Whilst some of us might be made aware Lectures: Who Decides What Makes Art Embodiment” Scholarship.” Current to Xenakis’ GenDyn technique. of some of the logics of inclusion and Good? Financial Times, 11th October Musicology 82 (2006): 61–80. exclusion in practicing computer music, 2013. [16] Buckley, Robin. ‘Is Palace of Marvels [4] Cusick, Suzanne G. “Feminist Theory, [Queered Pitch] by Marcus Schmickler we should never rest only along lines [13] Goh, Annie. ‘Sonic Cyberfeminism Music Theory, and the Mind/Body Radical?’ Unpublished essay. (2016). of gender, as if these were not always and Its Discontents’, CTM Festival complexly embedded along lines of race, Problem.” Perspectives of New Music 32, Magazine - Dis Continuity, (2014). [17] Plant, Sadie. Zeros + Ones: Digital class, ability, sexuality, and other forms of no. 1 (1999): 8–27. 87 88 array Artist Statements III Robin Buckley 2017/2018 [18] Plant, Sadie. Zeros + Ones: Digital more—all tension, no release, as Women + the New Technoculture. Control and communication in the animal Review exhilarating as it was exhausting.’ [5] (London: Fourth Estate. 1997). and the machine. (New York: John Wiley Is Marcus Schmickler’s Palace This essay will investigate the different [19] Moore, Matthew. ‘Google Book & Sons. 1948). of Marvels (Queered Pitch) a ways in which the album can be described “Finger Condoms” Cause Mirth’, [25] Similar to the intersectional as political, radical or extreme. It will telegraph.co.uk. 21 October 2009. http:// Radical Political Album? assemblages put forward in: Puar, Jasbir. look at how the aesthetics of academic www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/ ‘“I would rather be a cyborg than a by Robin Buckley and non-academic music are embedded google/6396896/Google-Book-finger- in the album and how these canons are goddess” Intersectionality, Assemblage, Palace of Marvels [Queered Pitch] (2010) condoms-cause-mirth.html. (Retrieved challenged. It will also reflect upon its and Affective Politics’, http://eipcp. [1] (which will be referenced in this essay 07.08.2017). conceptual themes of politics and nature, net/, January 2011. http://eipcp.net/ as PM[QP]) by Marcus Schmickler is in and how they are used to further political [20] Wen, Shawn. ‘The Ladies Vanish’, transversal/0811/puar/en. (Retrieved many ways a political album [2]. German ideas. The music will also be examined thenewinquiry.com. 11 November 2014, 07.08.2017). artist Marcus Schmickler released the through its use of ‘queer time’ through https://thenewinquiry.com/the-ladies- album in 2010 on the Austrian label its compositional structure, in the context vanish/. (Retrieved 07.08.2017). Editions Mego. Boomkat, a niche of a larger queer ideology. It will also online retailer of physical and digital [21] hooks, bell. Feminism Is for consider its shortcomings and how these music, described the record as ‘Marcus Everybody: Passionate Politics. (London: might have been overcome, and consider Schmickler’s quest to explore the outer Pluto Press, 2000). alternative methods to creating political reaches of extreme computer music’ [3]. musics within this genre. Is Schmickler’s [22] Hossfeld, Karen J. ‘“Their Logic Similarly, from an academic context, PM[QP] a radical, political work? against Them”: Contradictions in Sex, Haworth describes Schmickler’s recent Race, and Class in Silicon Valley’, in work in the current trend of ‘extreme As outlined in his lecture Marcus Technicolor: Race, Technology and computer music’, alongside artists such Schmickler Ueber Elektronische Musik / Everyday Life, ed. Alondra Nelson, Thuy as Hecker and Roc Jiménez de Cisneros Marcus Schmickler On Electronic Music Linh N Tu, and Alicia Headlam Hines [(one half of EVOL)]’ [4]. A performance [6], Schmickler takes a stance for his (New York: New York University Press, of the album at Unsound Festival in 2015 new electronic music as one which seeks 2001), 34–63. was described as: to engage with both low and high music culture. In doing so, he poses a new canon [23] Wright, Michelle M. ‘Racism, Markus Schmickler...took a mischievous, made up of: Technology, and the Limits of Western brute-force approach to EDM’s Knowledge’, in Domain Errors!: shock-and-awe tactics, rerouting ‘...Ligeti, Kagel, Lachenmann, Beuys, Cyberfeminist Practices: A subRosa rave’s adrenalized energy through a Cage, Dieter Roth, as well as Black Project, ed. Maria Fernandez, Faith maddening succession of Shepard tones Metal, Aphex Twin, Venetian Snares Wilding, and Michelle M. Wright (New accompanied by sweeping strobes. It and The Beach Boys or David Bowie, York: Autonomedia, 2002), 49. went on like that for 45 elastic minutes as well as electroacoustic music artists [24] Wiener, Norbert. Cybernetics: or, Pierre Henry or Parmegiani, noise artists

89 90 array special Review Robin Buckley 2017/2018 noise artists like Merzbow or the often They both seem to ignore the possibility also a completely different and simplistic and suspense’ and ‘typically appear cited Iannis Xenakis’. of a radical canon, one which seeks to approach to a self-similar structure, that is without tons of variation’ [15]. The end decolonize and deconstruct the white- also to be found in nature and that for itself result is a process ‘where the ebbs and This new canon is also referred to in the supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy [10]. is an interesting subject to be translated flows of stimulation in a huge crowd festival Between Two Deaths, for which Instead, they merely replace the academic into sound’ [12]. This is referring to the are homogenized to follow just one Schmickler curated the music programme canon that they work against with more Shepard tone, which is how the musical timeline—as prescribed by the DJ—in in 2007: ‘However, we cannot forget those white, Western men, albeit ones that pitches of the record are ‘Queered’. Again, hypnotised ecstasy’ (Iadarola, 2016). who came before, Cage, Varèse, Xenakis are not creating work directly within the political discussion on the epistemology Referring to EVOL’s work, Iadarola’s or Throbbing Gristle’ [7]. Haworth draws parameters of academic music or high of this nature or of the Shephard tone are descriptions can also be used to describe similar aesthetic comparisons between culture. ignored in favour of experimenting with the queer time that is also embedded high and low music in Hecker’s work, the sound itself. This leads to comparisons within Palace of Marvels [Queered Pitch]: whom he places alongside Schmickler Outside of these aesthetic sensibilities, to a very modernist approach to working as part of the extreme computer music PM[QP] takes a look at the socio- EVOL tracks, though they use dance with electronic music, one ideologically canon, and whom Schmickler invited economic implications of music [ ] and music as the host to their contagion, related to that of Elmert in the late 50s, to perform at Between Two Deaths. of nature itself. Referring to Noise: The never have that host’s dramatic build-up; searching for ‘a real musical control of Furthermore, Hecker’s work Acid in Political Economy of Music (1977), their sounds only come in floods. Their Nature’ [13]. Schmickler draws upon the Style of David Tudor (2009) [8] Schmickler looks towards the ‘The Palace work delivers pleasure in a form you the natural sciences, not in a political and Schmickler’s PM[QP] were both of Marvels’, a concept created by Leibniz simply didn’t ask for—too much at once, way, but because the field itself is ‘an created using a set of tools designed that is the ‘idealization of a perfect too much for your own good (Iadarola, interesting subject’ (Schmickler, 2010). for them by De Campo [9]. Haworth political organisation, which is built in 2016). Drawing on different concepts, but only describes Acid in the Style of David such a way that the master of the house describing or reenacting them - rather Sherburne describes this effect in a Tudor as ‘David Tudor’s neural network is able to hear and see everything that than interrogating them or questioning the performance of the work as ‘all tension, research ‘becoming’ acid techno in the is being said and done in the premises politics embedded in these topics - leads no release’ (Sherburne, 2015). An journey from the ivory towers to the without himself being perceived by his the album to a lack of political radicality, at example of this from PM[QP] would be bedroom studio’ and in doing so ‘Acid subjects’ (Editions Mego, 2010). Despite least in relation to these subjects. the eleventh track Mass Ornament. It fits voices the very real connections between having this conceptual framework, there both descriptions, as it is made up of an the ostensibly disparate domains of are no comments or actions, negative or Another political function of PM[QP] arpeggiated Shepard tones, punctuated ‘institutional’ and ‘amateur’ electronic positive, about a politics that function would be its relationship to queer theories by stabs of tones using non-Western music’. In this way both Schmickler in this way. Listening to the album, of time and ideology. In addition to the harmonic scales; at around one minute in and Hecker are successful in disrupting Schmickler seems to have merely built pitch being queered through the use of the piece increases the arpeggiator speed the separations that are often placed his music around this theory, and created the Shepard tone, the album is made while the stabs continue to chaotically between high and low or academic and a musical description of these politics, up of works that move away from the position themselves around the stereo non-academic music. However, even without making any kind of political normative linear time of dance culture, by field. The end, similarly again to Acid very simply through Schmickler’s new statement about it. Similarly, for the other creating music made up of ‘queer time’ in the Style of David Tudor, ‘is more canon, as well as the two styles cited conceptual framework of PM[QP], that [14]. As outlined by Iadarola, electronic humorous, at most a nod to the excessive, by Hecker, it is made up exclusively of of nature, he takes the same approach. dance music normally uses a ‘narrative punishing tendencies of some Japanese European and American male artists. Schmickler says in an interview that ‘...it is [that] is established by linear enticement 91 92 array special Review Robin Buckley 2017/2018 noise music... [rather than the]... softer, of desire is perceptible as time. The communication are becoming the tools would require in order to qualify as a more subtle mimetic quality’ (Haworth, music presented here displays ... of the “factory without walls,” we need radical political work is a more thorough 2013: p. 9) found in electroacoustic (political) failure, and (symbolic) death’ to be suspicious of ways in which cultural investigation of the way it reproduces music. Therefore, this piece, and the (Schmickler, 2007). practices can be exploited by capital. white supremacist, patriarchal and album as a whole, aligns itself with the Because of this we must constantly capitalist models, and a realignment with Specifically these statements against the intent of seeking to escape the ideologies question our motives, our modus an anti-social canon of the kind described moral mainstream, through a (political) of ‘bourgeois reproduction and family, operandi and its relation to the conditions by Halberstam, that would truly disrupt failure and (symbolic) death, sound very longevity, risk/safety, and inheritance’ [ that we are embedded in, to avoid these power structures. similar to Edelman’s queer politics ‘that ] through working against the aesthetics recuperation by a system that is going to takes both the value and the burden PM[QP] does succeed in disrupting traditionally found in the normative time produce ideological walls for us [18] of that failure itself ’ [ ] and seeks ‘the the academic canon, by drawing upon structures of electronic dance music. place of the social order’s death drive’ This is what the album needed more of: a varied group of musicians and artists By doing so, it becomes ‘...a blackhole (Edelman, 2004: p.3). By working with despite engaging with certain ideas and outside and within the academy. This which contrasts against the light of this the aesthetic functions of queer time and politics, it doesn’t seek to profoundly is a political action, but falls short of subject’ (Schmickler, 2011; translated by positioning itself alongside a queer disrupt or even be aware of these many radicalness due to its reproduction of by author). This leads to the album negative ideology, PM[QP] fits well into a different ideologies, and thereby ends up hegemony. The album draws upon the sitting alongside a greater queer negative larger radical queer narrative. reproducing them. In their critique of No politics of surveillance and nature but ideology, one fighting against any kind Future (2004), Halberstam points to other fails to address or discuss any political of future as represented by the child and Whether, radical, working with politics alternative models that seek to escape an contexts for these concepts. It succeeds in society. This stance is described in No or nihilistic, what are the alternatives for apolitical nihilism with a truly queer canon, queering time and producing alternative Future (2004) by Edelman: ‘the queer a version of PM[QP] that could be truly and leave behind a white supremacist, compositional structures working against must insist on disturbing, on queering, radical, political and extreme? One of patriarchal and capitalist one: ‘The anti- the normative ones within electronic social organization as such -on disturbing, the serious problems with the radicalness social archive must also be an archive of dance music. It also succeeds in aligning therefore, and on queering ourselves and of the album is that, despite comparisons alternatives, however, and it must mix high itself against these same social contexts, our investment in such organization. For to a queer negativity, this ‘negativity and low, known and unknown, popular with a queer negative ideology. However, queerness can never define an identity; might well constitute an anti-politics and obscure; and this archive where the the radicalness of such a negativity is it can only ever disturb one’ (Edelman, but it should not register as apolitical’ promise of self-shattering, loss of mastery disputed. PM[QP] by Marcus Schmickler 2004: p.17). This ideology can also be (Halberstam, 2008: p.148). This is where and meaning, unregulated speech and is therefore not a radical political work, seen in Schmickler’s program notes for the album falters, for despite hints of desire are unloosed’ (Halberstam, 2008, nor does it take an extreme political Between Two Deaths: specific kinds of politics – such as an p.153). This must be created alongside ‘a stance. However, there are politics and alternative canon or queer time - it never ‘The manifestations of the radically queer agenda that works cooperatively with political ways of thinking embedded in really distances itself enough from an subjective positions presented in this the many other heads of the monstrous the music, which if engaged with further, apolitical message, reproducing white, festival, however, are a statement against entity that opposes global capitalism... but more deeply - and most importantly, masculine and capitalist models. Mattin the predominant, moral, and material a queer politics which is also not tied to with more self-awareness - do have the critiques such an approach and insists mainstream. In these pieces a multi- a nihilism which always lines up against potential for creating a radical, political that: layered critique against Gebrauchmusik women, domesticity and reproduction’ album. (useful music) through the immediacy being aware that culture, creativity (Halberstam, 2008, p.154). What PM[QP] 93 94 array special Review Robin Buckley 2017/2018 Robin Buckley is a sound artist based in Music. [online] Vimeo, 2011. Available at: Bryn Mawr, Pa.: T. Presser in association London. Their work explores the politics https://vimeo.com/24413653 [Accessed with Universal Edition, 1968. and aesthetics of club culture, technology 1 Feb. 2016]. [14] Halberstam, Jack. In a queer and queerness. [7] Schmickler, Marcus. Between two time and place. New York: New York References deaths. Edited by Ellen Blumenstein and University Press, 2005: 1 Felix Ensslin. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, [1] Schmickler, Marcus. Palace of Marvels [15] Iadarola, Alexander. Narrative 2007: 314 [Queered Pitch]. [CD] Vienna: Editions time and excitation in computer music, Mego, 2010. [8] Hecker, Florian. Acid In The Style EDM, and noise. [online] Arachne.cc, Of David Tudor. [CD] Vienna: Editions 2016. Available at: http://arachne.cc/ [2] I wish to thank Holly Ingleton, Annie Mego, 2009. issues/01/narrative-time-alex-iadarola. Goh and Kenny Love for their input and html [Accessed 16 Feb. 2016]. support on this essay. [9] De Campo, Alberto, Fell, Mark and Justka, Ewa. (2015). Alberto De Campo [16] Halberstam, Jack. The Anti-Social [3] Boomkat. Marcus Schmickler - + Mark Fell + Ewa Justka + all artists in Turn in Queer Studies. Graduate Journal Palace Of Marvels (Queered Pitch). conversation with Christopher Haworth. of Social Science, Volume 5(Issue 2), [online] Boomkat, 2010. Available at: Interviewed by Christopher Haworth. 2008. https://boomkat.com/products/palace- Cafe OTO. 9th September, 2015. of-marvels-queered-pitch-340884ae- [17] Edelman, Lee. No future. Durham: 88cc-4a34-8f50- b8f45200fd54?taxon_ [10] hooks, bell. Feminism Is for Duke University Press, 2004: 7 id=107759 [Accessed 2 Mar. 2016]. Everybody: Passionate Politics. London: [18] Mattin Going Fragile. [online] Pluto Press, 2000. [4] Haworth, Christopher. Resonances. Mattin.org, 2005. Available at: http:// Edited by Michael Goddard, Benjamin [11] Editions Mego. Palace Of Marvels www.mattin.org/essays/ Going_Fragile_ Halligan and Nicola Spelman. New York: (queered pitch) - Marcus Schmickler. english_FINAL.html (Accessed 8 Mar. Bloomsbury Academic, 2013: 4-6. [online] Editionsmego.com, 2016. 2016). Available at: http://editionsmego.com/ [5] Sherburne, Philip. Buried Alive: release/eMEGO-113 [Accessed 17 Feb. Unlocking the Mysteries of Poland’s 2016]. Unsound Festival | Pitchfork. [online] Pitchfork.com, 2015. Available at: [12] Schmickler, Marcus. Interview http://pitchfork.com/features/photo- with Marcus Schmickler. Interviewed gallery/9740-buried-alive-unlocking-the- by Jon Mueller for RHYTHMPLEX, mysteries-of-polands-unsound-festival/ 2010. Available at: http://rhythmplex. [Accessed 9 Mar. 2016]. com/writing/interview-with-marcus- schmickler/ [Accessed 4 Mar. 2016]. [6] Schmickler, Marcus. Marcus Schmickler Ueber Elektronische Musik [13] Eimert, Herbert. Die Reihe. Edited / Marcus Schmickler On Electronic by Herbert Eimert and Karlheinz

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