NEWS
Posted on: 6th July 2017
The Reading List
In May of 2017 WISWOS posted a list of female authors on sound to make visible women’s contribution to the field of sound studies. The response to this list was phenomenal, it has been shared over 20,000 times and to this day it has been dowloaded over 15,000 times. As part of the Research in a Box project (see below), currently under development, WISWOS decided to develop an online interactive space expanding on the list. Two women, Joanna Helms and Diana Chester took on the role, alongside web developer Tony Doyle, to generate this space, which will be made accessible in September when WISWOS will launch its new website. Please read their mission statement below.
The Women In Sound / Women On Sound Reading List aims to construct a resource of written, sonic, and visual materials created about and by women who work with sound. The Reading List began as an informal collection of resources compiled for a music-related masters program concerned with the underrepresentation of writing by and about women in the field. First launched in conjunction with the WISWOS Research in a Box project, the List continues to grow and serves as a resource for students, educators, and researchers. The List strives to be inclusive and representative of women working in and on Sound from around the world, in a myriad of languages, in both historical and contemporary settings. In working toward this mission, our aim is to build a well-rounded collection of materials on women in sound so that no educational program will lack the resources to develop balanced, intersectional gender representation in their own reading lists. The Reading List will be launching a public submission form in September 2017 to solicit resources and input on how to further shape the scope and depth of the collection.
Joanna Helms and Diana Chester.
Diana Chester is an artist, musician, technologist, and educator. Her work draws from sound studies, archival studies, and ethnography. Her research is focussed on the sonic nuance of religious traditions and festivals around the world. Diana holds a BA from Mount Holyoke College, an MA from Columbia University, and a PhD from the University of Porto.
Joanna Helms is a musicologist and educator with research interests in music and sound production for broadcast media and the early history of electronic music. Joanna has presented work on the development of sound effects on early American radio at the National Broadcasting Company, and on new media and participation in the promotion of contemporary classical music in the US and Europe. She is currently writing a dissertation on mid-twentieth-century electronic music production at Italian state media network Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI). Having played and taught flute for many years, Joanna has more recently taken up electric bass. She has also been active as a fundraising committee member and camp band manager at Girls Rock North Carolina, and previously organized concerts, lectures, and participatory events as a co-founder of the Experimental Music Study Group in North Carolina’s Research Triangle area.
Posted on: 12th June 2017
We are delighted to announce the three women who have been commissioned to create video tutorials for our Research in a Box project, Activating Women in Sound. They are Eva Petersen, María José Ibarbo and Nina Richards. These women will be designing a series of video tutorials for our new website, which will be launched as part of a larger education program for secondary schools in September 2017. See below information about women and tutorials.
Tutorials Video
The British Female Pioneers of Electronic Sound Part One: Delia Derbyshire
The British Female Pioneers of Electronic Sound Part Two: Daphne Oram
Eva Petersen is a visual artist, composer, vocalist and performer. In 2002, Eva founded Liverpool band The Little Flames as lead singer, and was signed to Deltasonic /Sony BMG. The band toured the UK, Europe and Japan with The Arctic Monkeys and The Coral and released their album The Day Is Not Today (released 2016) to critical acclaim. In 2012, Eva released her solo album Emerald Green Eyes, a collaboration with guitarist Will Sergeant from Echo and the Bunnymen, to critical acclaim. Eva has also been commissioned to produce recordings by Mojo magazine and filmmaker John Davide, and she is currently writing an album due for release December 2017.
Eva lectures on the BA (Hons) Fine Art and History of Art undergraduate degrees at Liverpool School of Art and Design, Liverpool John Moores University and is working toward her PhD at the university. Her practice-led thesis is entitled Voices of Winter Palace: A Practice-led Exploration of the Visibility of Women in Sound.
Nina has designed a simple PCB for the sound making kit that’s based on an old design known as the Stepped Tone Generator. In this video, Nina will demonstrate basic soldering techniques in the process of showing you how to assemble the sound making circuit. Once soldered together, this can be used to make experimental sounds.
Nina has always been interested in electronics, computers and making music. Recently, she’s been designing and building electronic music synthesiser modules that are sold all around the world and used by noteworthy musicians.
Nina spends the rest of her time working as a web developer.
Tutorials Video
These video tutorials are aimed to encourage women of all ages to know about Live Sound, what it is to be a Sound Engineer, and to inspire them to become one by showing them what other female Sound Engineers have achieved.
María José Ibarbo is a current second year Music Technology Student at Leeds Beckett University from Colombia, South America. In her 2 years living in the UK she’s volunteered for Sofar Sound Leeds, a non-profit organisation that runs free secret music events, at Latitude Festival on 2016 and Live at Leeds on 2016 and 2017 as a Backstage Assistant.
Her passions have always been becoming a FoH engineer and touring all around the world, and becoming a producer in her home country to help promoting Latin American talent, but most of all, learning about ways to empower women through sound. She’s been recently accepted into WAM’s (Women’s Audio Mission) Studio Internship Program in San Francisco, U.S., where she hopes to learn how to get more women into the industry.
Posted on: 22nd March 2017
WISWOS is delighted to announce that we have been awarded the Research in a Box grant.
‘Research in a Box’ is a loanable kit aimed at GCSE or A-Level school students that fits in with the appropriate curriculum and at the same time showcases resources used by researchers. The aim is to inspire the next generation of researchers and to aid in the transition of pupils from school to University.’ (Lancaster University)
The aim of the box is to first, make practical interventions into the current pedagogical apparatus for the teaching of sonic technologies in schools, and second, to interrogate and generate the construction of virtual and physical sites of knowledge exchange on gender, sound and technology.
Discussions and focus groups with young women and teenagers at the WISWOS symposia, which began in 2015, indicated that girls felt the model for the teaching of technology and music was inherently gendered and excluded their participation with these subjects. Recent research shows that it is increasingly clear that existing ideologies of gender and technology are being absorbed into pedagogical constructs shaping the teaching of music technology and influencing the perception of technology in general.
The loanable box will contain a series of toolkits for would be noise makers, tutorials on sound design, instrument building and live coding. We will also be commissioning women makers and composers to create tutorial videos for young girls to access, which will be located on a dedicated learning website. The boxes will be available from Lancaster University from September 2017.
Linda O Keeffe, Rebecca Collins
With thanks to the core network for consulting on this proposal
LizDobson
Andrew Deakin (Octopus Collective)
Milena Droumeva
Lisa Busby
Lilian Campesato
Isabel Nogueira
