Physicality, persons and personae in the creative process of sound-based-art

Next July 12th I’ll be keynote speaker at the Heroines of Sound Festival in Berlin, in the second panel titled “The engaged body and the aesthetics of electronic music”. I will share the stage with other speakers: Sabine Sanio (moderator), Greta Eacott, Katharina Ernst, Anna Murray, Karen Power, Teresa Riemann, Robyn Schulkowsky.

My presentation will focus on the physicality in the use of material & immaterial, analogue & digital instruments, and in particular on how some female musicians consider these aspects (most often neglected in the literature of the creative processes) in their daily production of sound-based-art.

Abstract: Sound-based-art is mostly made of electronic sounds but how are these sounds made? How do their creators physically operate? This question has always guided my research: the reconstruction of the ›behind the scenes‹, the making-of, the actual (material or dematerialized) creative process. As Jo Hutton (BBC) has shown in her research on the work of Delia Derbyshire, Éliane Radigue and Beatriz Ferreyra the practical, sensual relationship with studio equipments seems not to be relevant for these composers. To broaden the perspective I will expand the discussion to other figures such as Teresa Rampazzi, creators Maura Capuzzo and Svetlana Maraš, and musical assistants Sylviane Sapir, Monica Gil Giraldo and Sandrine Pages.
Topics arising from the above are self-evaluation and self-archiving. Self-archiving can be considered a mirror, a way for creators to show themselves in the distinction between ›person‹ and ›character‹, their self, their practice (material or virtual), and the emanation to the outside world. How they organize their materials shows how they perceive themselves and their practice.