OpenSignal Music Collective Interview

Suzanne Thorpe and Bonnie Jones

Suzanne Thorpe and Bonnie Jones

OpenSignal is a collective of artists based in Providence, Rhode Island (USA) concerned with the state of gender and race in experimental electronic-based sound and art practices. They host technical skillshares, critical discussions, and events featuring artists pushing the boundaries of thought and practice in electronic performance. (Taken from cargocollective.com/opensignal). In this Q&A, they share some insights into their experiences working and studying in the field experimental electronic arts, and how they hope their organization might bring about more diversity and awareness of the broad spectrum of artist that are many times underrepresented by the media. The collective will be hosting the OPENSIGNAL Spring Festival and album release on Friday and Saturday, MAY 16 and 17, 2014 at the Granoff Center For the Arts at Brown University.

Femmecult:

Please tell us about the underlying philosophy and mission of Open Signal.

Akiko Hatakeyama:

To address that there are great electronic artists who happen to be women or non-white or both. Male artists, especially European descent males, have been more visible in many situations: electronic music textbooks, faculty members in those departments engaging with electronic arts, conferences and festivals. They are great artists, and we do not intend to exclude or attack men. We simply aim to bring up the fact that there are great female artists as well who do not get recognized as easily as it should be.

Asha Tamirisa:

An air of masculinity has taken on a sense of inevitability in the spheres of experimental and electronic music despite the fact that there is great diversity in its innovators and practitioners. The objective of OPENSIGNAL is to create a structure to address this bias and to make the work of women and womyn-identified artists more visible.

Caroline Park:

… and to add: to increase awareness and increase visibility of those who are not seen in the field of experimental and electronic music.

Bridget Feral:

Also OPENSIGNAL aims to create a community/support-system for women in experimental/electronic arts.

Femmecult:

Why did your collective decide to start Open Signal? What do you hope to accomplish by it?

Asha Tamirisa:

The desire to create a structure like OPENSIGNAL is to create a community and network of those concerned with similar issues and engaged in similar practices, and to make these issues more visible to the public.

Caroline Park:

We started OPENSIGNAL really quite locally — a small group of us who felt the imbalance (weighted very heavily towards white men) and were moved to take action. In our pilot year, we are focusing on women and womyn-identified artists, as the feminine body seems to be (in my opinion) judged first. Actually, I never know what is perceived first: gender, or race. I hope to accomplish a more open dialogue about these things — why is there hesitation to talk about gender, race, queerness/sexuality, disability, social class, privilege (those who have it and those who do not) in experimental and electronic music? More often than not, these areas are simply not addressed, as if they do not exist. Everyone refers to the canon of white men, so, there is a need to make noise.

Bridget Feral:

Not many people seemed to talk about (or maybe even notice) these issues before. OPENSIGNAL opens up a space to acknowledge and confront all of these topics.

Caroline Park:

That is to say, no one talked about these issues publicly in electronic music at Brown University until we did. So, we started this with the institution, and are looking to continue the conversation both here at Brown and beyond the university setting, to connect the conversation, really … this dialogue has been going on for some time, and it should go on into the future (not to suggest that progress won’t be, or isn’t being made, but to emphasize that people need to continue talking about this — carving new patterns over old patterns is the challenge … !).

Femmecult:

Tell us about the creative climate of Providence? Is there a large audience for these types of music and art presentations?

Akiko Hatakeyama:

Comparing with my previous experiences in Middletown CT etc., I would say yes. Having RISD and other art organizations such as AS220 and Community Music Works attracts audiences. Brown definitely contributes to these other organizations to build the community, but equally or even more these organizations contribute to the art scenes at Brown.

Asha Tamirisa:

There is a really incredible experimental scene in Providence that is really active and diverse. Another part of OPENSIGNAL’s hopes is to bridge gaps between what is happening in the institutions in Providence and what is happening in the community. I’d say there is definitely an incredible audience for this type of work here.

Caroline Park:

Yes, Providence is happening. It is a small city (in comparison to say Boston or New York), but there is a very large number of experimental musicians and artists here. We all go to each other’s shows; the scene (existing in multiple layers) is really very vibrant.

Lucy Lewis:

I could not speak enough about how great the noise scene is here. But there is 1, also serious gender imbalance in that context, or rather a certain air of masculinity, that makes the scene difficult to penetrate as a woman, and 2, a significant division between folks studying at Brown/RISD and everyone else who isn’t here to go to school. There is definitely a wonderfully attentive audience out there, but we have to work fairly hard at making sure everyone hears about what’s going on up on College Hill, and of course make all our events free.

Eel Burn:

Providence is the best! There is a crazy number of people making incredible music unlike anything else out there and going completely under the radar. The student/non-student divide is definitely a real force, though. Fortunately, our events have been attracting plenty of non-students despite being held in university venues, which has been really great and encouraging.

Claire Kwong:

Aside from electronic music, there is also a lot happening in digital art and literature. Brown has great programs in computer science, visual art, electronic writing, and modern culture and media, and RISD has a digital media program. Through theory, we can think critically about the art and music we make. For example, Asha, Bridget, and I took a course on feminism and technology, where we explored gender, race, and performance.

Femmecult:

What are the collective founders’ histories and experiences working in the field of electronic music and art?

Claire Kwong:

I make interactive art to dramatize my personal experience with technology. I work across mediums, including digital, installation, and performance art. I studied classical piano, but started making electronic music last year. In sound, I’m interested in digital versus analog, human versus machine, and gestural performance. I studied computer science and modern culture and media at Brown University. www.clairekwong.com

Akiko Hatakeyama:

www.akikohatakeyama.com

Asha Tamirisa:

I work with sound, video, movement, and sometimes sculpture. I studied in the TIMARA [Technology in Music and Related Arts] program at Oberlin College and am now a graduate student at Brown University. www.ashatamirisa.net

Caroline Park:

I am a composer / musician, and mostly create and perform using my own code in Max/MSP — have been purely digital for some time, and slowly going more analog … Previously I studied classical composition at the New England Conservatory in Boston where I lived for about six years before moving to Providence. I am now (with Asha and Akiko) pursuing a Ph.D. in electronic music at Brown University. http://blanksound.org/

Lucy Lewis:

I am just finishing up my final year of the Brown/RISD dual degree program. I studied painting at RISD, making work in a variety of mediums, and I spent most of my time in the Music department at Brown. I’ve done a fair amount of work in recent years making music outside of school on my own, and with collaborators/bands, but am currently in between projects. I don’t have much of my own stuff on the internet right now but occasionally I’ll put something up on this: https://soundcloud.com/lucky-lewis I started out working in MaxMSP and Ableton, but now use mostly physical hardware (digital and analog). I’m also beginning to learn to use the open source visual programming software, Pure Data, in conjunction with mini single board computers like Raspberry PI and Beagleboard.

Bridget Feral:

I’m in my 3rd year at Brown studying music. I’m interested in experimental instrument design.

Eel Burn:

I’ve been playing around Providence and New York City with other people and by myself under various names (Playground Jerks, Wilted Woman, Neat Freak and Pork Secret to name a few recent ones) for a couple years. I switch between MaxMSP, vocal processing, guitar and electronics. I also run a tape label called Wicked City. I was introduced to experimental electronic music through vague adolescent involvement in the New York DIY scene, so the more academic sphere of electronic music is still very new (and exciting!) to me. www.virtual-slap.net

Femmecult:

What kinds of performances do you have planned in the future? What are some topics of the critical discussions that you have planned?

Asha Tamirisa:

We have our inaugural OPENSIGNAL Festival coming up in about 3 weeks, on May 16th and 17th! The event will feature guest artists Tara Rodgers, Blectum from Blechdom, Maria Chavez, Lyn Goeringer, Andrea Pensado, and local artists Wilted Woman, Lucy Lewis, Caroline Park, Asha Tamirisa, Pitch, Velvet Von Offal, Congyuan Luo, Kristina Wolfe, Laura Cetilia, Claire Kwong, Akiko Hatakeyama, Bridget Feral and more!

Caroline Park:

Yes festival!! It will be at the Granoff Center for Creative Arts, on Brown University campus in Providence, Rhode Island — 154 Angell St — so if you are in New England, come! There will also be a large-scale collaborative installation featuring the work of many sound artists / musicians / composers / performers in New England and beyond.

Tara Rodgers (Analog Tara / author-founder of Pink Noises) will be giving the keynote on Saturday May 17th. She will discuss reframing the electronic music canons by addressing the questions of gender and race in the history of synthesized sound, emphasizing on how gendered and racialized metaphors inflect audio-technical language and representation.

Femmecult:

Please talk about your purpose for placing focus on the work of female artists?

Akiko Hatakeyama:

Ideally I don’t want to focus on female artists. I want to focus on artists who I think are awesome regardless of genders or any other categorizing names. But, currently we are in a traditional phaze that people strive to create an environment that we don’t have to think about unequal ratios of genders and other facts in art. Thus, we aim to raise awareness of works of females by introducing them to our local communities. Starting with grass roots.

Asha Tamirisa:

Ideally, electronic music histories, festival lineups, and educators would represent the diversity
of work that actually occurs in the field, but their remains a bias in whose work is visible and whose work gets highlighted, especially here in our academic community, As such, we have placed our focus on artists who we feel will add to the conversation happening here.

Bridget Feral:

People who aren’t white & male have a harder time getting noticed for their work. We are choosing to notice the people who wouldn’t be seen as easily by typical institutions. It’s important that we aren’t making a separate space for women’s work, because that reinforces the idea that it is different and outside, but that we are simply filling a gap in the current opportunities for certain groups of people.

Femmecult:

What is the selection process for including artists in your events?

Asha Tamirisa:

Our idea was to bring guests that represented a diverse range of approaches to ideas of gender and audio culture, through outreach, artist practice, and theoretical engagement. Our first guests were Bonnie Jones and Suzanne Thorpe of TECHNE, an organization that does electronic sound and
circuitry workshops with young women. Our second guest was Laetitia Sonami, who of course has really interesting and subversive ideas on interfaces and controllerism. Composer and scholar, Tara Rodgers, author of Pink Noises, will be giving the keynote at our festival. Blectum from Blechdom and Maria Chavez will also be performing at our festival, and they both have really unique approaches, both conceptually and practically, to their performances.

Caroline Park:

Definitely very unique; Maria has really re-invented turntablism performance with chance procedures over the last 10 years. And we are lucky to have Bevin Kelley (Blevin Blectum; half of Blectum from Blechdom) based here in Providence. Kristin Erickson (Kevin Blechdom) is currently based in Santa Cruz, CA, so BFB reunion at the festival.

Femmecult:

What are some factors that contribute to unequal representation between the genders in the electronic arts, and do you see that changing? If so, what might be contributing to that change?

Akiko Hatakeyama:

The first part of this question about unequal representation — female artists rarely came up in class lectures and published books used in class about electronic music history etc. in higher educational institutions I’ve attended. At electronic music related conferences and festivals, majority of selection committees and organizers happened to be non-females. The male dominated environment has been the “norm” in electronic music / contemporary music for quite a while, and it is hard to question the norm if you are inside of it (if you are a man), so the situation hasn’t changed drastically yet.
The second part of the question — I think numerous factors of course interweave to create any changes, but general awareness of gender equality/inequality among people must be one of them. Also, the advancement of the Internet has changed the ways artists express and present their works (such as websites, blogs, and video streaming etc.) – a strong sense of autonomy exists there. People do not have to go through selection processes to post their work, thus there is no filtering by a certain group of people such as editors and curators. Although this benefit applies to everyone not only women, visibilities of works by females is increasing because of this new environment of free presentation. It is a slow change, but this is an important change that causes further changes.

Lucy Lewis:

There are many factors. Part of our problem with unequal representation in the academic world is that there are simply fewer women in the field. This can be used as an excuse: “well there are more men in the festival because there are just not as many women making X type of music” (insert any genre). If this is the case, hypothetically speaking, then we can’t stop there, we have to ask why there are fewer women to choose from. I can understand why there might be so few women in graduate and Phd programs, because of the severe imbalance that I saw among undergraduates at Brown. I was usually the only girl, or one of two in all of my seminars and production courses. But why, then, don’t more girls want to study electronic music in college? Maybe its because in high school and middle school, only boys were jamming on electric guitars and banging on drumsets. Only boys are computer nerds, right? Or at least thats what television and movies and music videos told us. For some, there might have been a little voice that says “wow, this is super cool and fun, wouldn’t it be exciting to be a girl and be really good at this?” But how much can that little voice, especially when you are young and sponge-like, stand up against the constant flow of interpellating media and advertising and rhetoric that insists that girls don’t do this stuff, and if they do, they are probably bad at it. Yes, it can be exciting to have the extra attention as a female in the boys club, but at the same time, there is constant pressure in that position, and over time that pressure can take its toll, make it hard to move forward in your own individual practice, when you have to think of yourself as a representative. So I guess its hard for women to continuously make that active decision to stand up against a norm and keep doing so, in spite of the fact we are told not to, and in spite of the extra effort it requires. For men, there is no question about whether they belong, there is no decision necessary, they just do what they have always already been doing. Of course I am making some sweeping generalizations to make this point, and there are many other overlapping factors at play including, but not limited to, sexuality, race, ethnicity, socio-economic background and education.

How can we try to disrupt this cycle? One way is to insist on better visibility and representation of work by women and minorities, and to create space for that to happen, as some have mentioned above. Another way we can try to create change is by making people aware of their own assumptions about who is and who isn’t nerding out over various aspects of the production of music. When I say production, I mean any way of making music, not just “producing” it in a studio like Dr. Dre.

We have been following a debate going on recently on one thread of the many niche online music forums, concerning links to pornographic images of women, and how they might be exclusionary to a few members of the forum. I, personally, have no problem with an image of a naked person. I’m not against porn in general. I might even like it. But what these guys need to think about is, when you post such an image, what kind of assumptions are you making about the person who sees your post? How are you positioning your audience? You alone may not be at fault, but all of the thousands of other instances add up to reproduce a heteronormative phallocentrism, that clearly places any perspective of someone who is not attracted to that image on the outside of the community. If guilt has to be distributed, we are all guilty, because who hasn’t assumed the DJ is a man, or used the word “sound guy” instead of “sound person” (no one says sound person). The point is not to point fingers and play a reactionary blame game, but to look towards the future in an effort to generate an awareness of the assumptions that constitute normal. Some people take oppositional offense when you first appear to be offended. They think you are calling them sexist, you’re being too “politically correct,” and then it can easily escalate into a battle of offenses/offendedness. Although it’s important to try to avoid such escalation, even that battle helps to build consciousness. Yeah it’s a free country, (this is often an argument), say whatever the hell you want, this forum is considered a space of “free expression.” Just know what the ramifications are of your words and posts, and think about who you might be inadvertently silencing. Know the effects on a young women in the audience when booking a show with an all male lineup. When all of your teachers or professors are men. Music is inevitably tied to social relations, to the political, because sound exists in space between people. Especially in the 21st century with the internet and stuff, networks for sharing and distribution of music are endlessly interconnected with and constitutive of bigger social networks. Small differences in thought and conduct can ripple out and expand to ultimately disrupt the greater conditions of “normal.” For now OPENSIGNAL is giving it a go in our own immediate context and hoping that our efforts have a rippling effect. Even if its a little ripple.

Caroline Park:

Yes, yes, and yes to Lucy. I just want to add a few things with regards to whether there are actually fewer women out there, or that, in contrast, there are lots of women that we just are not seeing due to male tunnel-vision. I lean more towards the latter — and I blame the books that make electronic music history look like it was all created by, or exclusively the work of, white men. It would be nice if we didn’t have to do all the research ourselves to find the women — the books, class syllabi, etc. all have the same white men in them, and maybe the mention of the one token woman, if at all. That’s bullshit. And it’s too easy to go back to the canon, which is so flawed in its representation. And when you’re in school it’s easy to be passively absorbing information — it takes an extra step to think critically about what the information actually is, and who is filtering it. Which is why I was really excited to find the Pink Noises text by Tara Rodgers. I was like … yes! This should be in every syllabi for any electronic music course. As an educator myself, I really think educators need to be extremely aware — there’s a lot of responsibility when you’re teaching a course on electronic music, when you’re around music students. And even among colleagues / friends (esp. men), what is the terminology used to describe other musicians? “There’s a guy who does such-and-such.” Why not just “musician” — take away the “guy” aspect? Terminology goes a long way — saying sound engineer vs. sound guy, etc.

But in general, I think to help change the imbalance, there needs to be a keen awareness about it, as well as taking critical action, whether it’s approaching a woman and asking if she’s a musician (and not assuming she’s the girlfriend of one) at a festival, or extending an invitation to share a concert line-up, or asking someone to release something on your label. It’s a critical social practice.

The last thing I’ll say is that there is not just one kind of woman who can be in the experimental / electronic music / arts scene. Sure, one can be a tough woman — a “bro” with the bros — but then to say or suggest that that is the only kind of woman who can exist in the electronic scene? To basically suggest that one has to be like the men in order to be legitimately a part of the community? That’s being blind to so many people. So let’s just open up our eyes to everyone.

Claire Kwong:

As a girl working in technology, I frequently felt not good enough compared to boys. I felt like I had to work toward their seemingly innate mastery of computers, and prove myself as a woman at the same time. There is still an imbalance of women to men in all technology related fields, though it’s getting better. At Brown, I was able to put a name to my feelings, impostor syndrome. Fortunately, Brown has groups for women in technology, like Women in Computer Science (WiCS) and Women in Science and Engineering (WISE), and now opensignal, that I joined and where we were able to discuss these issues.

In my art and music practice, I find myself drawn toward performance art involving my body. There’s a strong tradition of feminist performance artists like Marina Abramovic and Carolee Schneemann, who were also rebelling against male-dominated art. The body is often seen as feminine, and technology as masculine; femininity can be seen as constant performance in acts like putting on makeup and carrying our bodies in certain ways. So, women were able to claim a space with their bodies. With sound recording, it’s different because the body is separated from sound (except maybe in voice). Therefore it may be harder to carve out a space for women in electronic music. Though I wonder if we are limiting ourselves. If I am a woman, is my performance always about womanness? Do we have to use our bodies? Should we assimilate with men, or carve out our own space? In opensignal, we’re trying to do both, but walking that fine line. We’ve talked a lot about the degree to which we emphasize femininity or include men.

Femmecult:

In what ways do you hope Open Signal will work to bring public awareness to the importance of a more equal representation of artists working in the field of electronic arts?

Asha Tamirisa:

At least in terms of the academic climate here, gender and race isn’t as talked about very much in the electronic music department, and we hope to get these conversations started, or at least create a place where these conversations can happen. There also haven’t been many guest artists brought to campus through our department recently that represent gender and racial diversity, so we hope to highlight how important it is, especially considering the lack of diversity on our faculty, to highlight diversity through our guest artist series. Moreover, though, we hope to change the celebrated image of the electronic musician– to make clear that it could be anyone, to make this field more expansive and open and to highlight the ways in which many artists have been and continue to subvert its paradigms.

Bridget Feral:

I hope this conversation can also spread to other university departments and music worlds. The imbalances we see in electronic music certainly aren’t unique to the field.

Femmecult:

Grant funding for the arts has a reputation for being hard to come by in the United States, yet Open Signal seems to be funded mostly by grants and donations. What was your experience securing these grants? Is it possible that funding is available for more of these types of music and art events concerned with the state of gender and race in the electronic arts?

Asha Tamirisa:

We are very lucky to have institutional support for our events. Given the state of diversity on faculty in electronic arts here, there is good reason for the institution to want to support our goals and mission. But we have no clue what the future holds with regards to funding. Regardless, we will remain active with whatever resources we have!

Bridget Feral:

We’ve received a huge amount of support and positive feedback, which has been really encouraging. It’s nice to know that though the system may hold many inequalities there are plenty of individuals and groups that see the value and importance of our mission and want to help out.

Caroline Park:

And that support has come from the university — as of now our funding has come exclusively from institutional grants, no donations. We are hoping to expand beyond the institution in the future … no concrete plans yet. As Asha says, we will remain active in some form!

Eel Burn:

Funding is tricky to navigate, because being completely financially dependent on outside organizations can be limiting; however, it does allow us to keep everything we do free and accessible, which is really important to our mission.

Femmecult:

What does the Open Signal collective have planned for the future in terms of music releases, videos and other media?

Asha Tamirisa:

We have our first compilation which will be released [on vinyl!] at the festival in May! We are very excited about that. We hope to continue releasing compilations of work done by the collective. We will also have documentation of our events available in the coming months.

– Check out OPENSIGNAL online! –
http://cargocollective.com/opensignal/