A collaborative and expanded radio project of Julia Drouhin and Phillipa Stafford, Sisters Akousmatica are inspired by porous possibilities of transmission and the embodiment of radio akousmatic nature: a voice cut from the source. They are concerned with collective radio practices, auditory-spatial exploration and the potential of emergent art forms to support socio-cultural and gender minorities in the field of sound arts.
CUTTING LAPS is their new public radio work that combines car culture and radio art for a series of transmission for Castlemaine State Festival 2019, commissioned by Latrobe Art Institute.
Radio Queens drove a custom built car transmitter, nightly, in traditional blockies while transmitting the sound works of Verónica Mota (Mexico-Germany) ORION, Celeste Oram (New Zealand-Southern California) QUESTIAN, Anna Raimondo (Italy-Belgium) MARRAKECH(S), Beatriz Ferreyra (Argentina-France) PROMENADE EN ZIG ZAG, Jacqui Shelton (Australia) CLAP CRUSH, which was listened to via radios in cars, shops and residences within 1 km of the cutting laps site.
They shared composed pieces of cut up wandering in radio voice and instrument tuning zig zaging through the city (Beatriz Ferreyra), questian the listeners if they can survive on light or what advice would they give to an ice cube (Celeste Oram), annoying impatient ears with a crowd of claps to consider the celebratory nature of hot rod culture and the egotistical drive of ‘cutting laps’ (Jacqui Shelton), exploration of the human imagination in relation to physical phenomena and astral magick in four electro-acoustic chapters as a sonic sculpture referring to the works of John Cage, Native Ritualistic Music & Science Fiction (Verónica Mota), and surrealistically imprint the Australian streets of Castlemaine with musical notes of Moroccan streets of Marrakech (Anna Raimondo).
With archival field recording, ritualistic sound, instrumental score, accumulation of repetition, sabotaged voice, they marked the Castlemaine landscape for an instant, in a ramification of airwaves from a furry BRUM BRUM moving vehicle of transmission.
Sisters Akousmatica gave a talk to students about Curating Resistances, a Transmit Yourself workshop for kids, discussed Spectacular theme in Biennale, Triennale and festival context for a panel with Charles Green and Kent Wilson, and played some tunes for Parallel Islands presented by Julian Williams on Main FM.
This CUTTING LAPS project was commissioned and supported by La Trobe Art Institute and was made possible by the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund, which supports the arts in regional and remote Australia. We would like to thank our radio friends from REAST (Radio and Electronics Association of Southern Tasmania), Hobart for their moral and technical support.
Check out the Sisters Akousmatica Instagram profile for updates @radioqueens