Sonic Cyberfeminisms: Introduction

Abstract

Since the mid-2010s, there has been a surge of interest in the relations between sound, gender and technology. Debates taking place in contemporary arts, music, education and audio technology have pointed to the continued lack of women and non-binary people represented in these fields. Particularly in the technocentric fields relating to electronic-based musics and sound arts, a masculinist and heteronormative bias has compounded an often under-acknowledged hostility to feminist agendas of change or reform. Various initiatives, in the form of networks, conferences, educational programmes and online campaigns, have sought to redress this. 1

Weaving an Artistic Research Methodology

“…Weaving, as I will try to conceptualize it here, is a performative approach; it is a performance score as mode of discovery that tries to send certain threads flying together to see what patterns might emerge. (Haraway, Plant, Kember and Zylinska), weaving is a practice that reflects feminist perspectives on technology and places them within a broader landscape of technological history that includes the critical perspectives of cyberfeminism (Braidotti 1996;Fernandez, Wilding, and Wright 2002;Kember and Zylinska 2012;Goh and Thompson 2021) as well as other recent interventions (Laboria Cubeoniks 2014;Russell 2020). Building on these theorists and the artistic legacies of feminist approaches to digital art, I present weaving as a methodological approach that unites these theories in artistic research.…”

Exploring Cultural Diversity in Experimental Sound

“…The Black Lives Matter movement has thrown into sharp relief many examples of the injustices that Black people face as a result of institutional Whiteness, and this should catalyze serious investigation and honest critical reflection in our own field. Recent work in diversifying experimental sound practices has focussed on gender and increasing the representation of women (Born & Devine 2015, Lane 2016, and Goh & Thompson 2021. While this work is absolutely vital, there is a need to address other forms of exclusion, such as racial exclusion.…”