Why Not Our Voices?
Cathy Lane · Women & music · 2016
Using three case studies of work by Hildegard Westerkamp, Janet Cardiff and Jasmeen Patheja this paper investigates how women sound artists use the speaking voice in their work to create a 'sonic persona' that directly challenges historical and contemporary cultural assumptions about both women's voices and the male normative in sound arts practice.The paper traces the starting points of this research through a small project investigating work by female students at London College of Communication.One of the most significant findings of this was that many female students used voice, mainly speaking voice and often their own, in their work.It goes on to consider 'common' cultural assumptions about women's voices from a number of sources and then moves to a detailed analysis of the three works.While not directly referencing the content of the Her Noise Archive, this paper owes its impetus to, and is part of, the development of a feminist sound studies which has been activated by the establishing of the Her Noise Archive at London College of Communication. Starting pointsIn 2008 I conducted a small research project within the Sound Arts department at London College of Communication (LCC) 1 .The project entitled 'A suitable job for a woman?Using creative work to challenge perceptions of Sound Arts and Design at LCC and widen participation' 2 arose from my observation that, since 1998 when Sound Arts was first offered as an academic field of study at LCC, the type of work produced by female students was significantly different from that produced by male students.The research focused on two main areas: the experiences of female students when they were at college and the work that they produced.The main research questions that I asked about their work were:1. Can the work be said in any way to be gendered?How is gender difference represented in the work? 2. Can we talk about the techniques of sound work as being gendered?3. How is voice used in the work? 4. Can our knowledge of the artist's gender inform our understanding of the work in any way? 5. Do women talk about their work differently from men?Many issues and conclusions arose from this enquiry but, for me, one of the most significant findings was that many female students used voice, mainly spoken voice, in their work, often their own.Hannah Bosma has observed that there is a tendency in computer music to use male and female voices in different ways: the female voice is associated with (traditionally trained) singing, often without words and often live, and the male voice is more often associated with spoken language.3 While this was not corroborated by my research, other observations of Bosma's were similar to my findings....Various ways of singing, speaking, non-linguistic and linguistic female voice sounds, written text and electronic sound manipulations are often combined by women composers to create different stories about femininity in words and sounds.4 As were Elizabeth Hinkle Smith's ideas about women's use of voices in a way that provides an empowering element to her composition and an autobiographical insight into her creative process.5The Her Noise Archive at LCC This research project was one of the contributing factors to Electra 6 choosing London College of Communication as a home for the Her Noise Archive.The physical archive now shares the shelves in the Archives and Special Collections at LCC with materials from Stanley Kubrick,