Research Page collecting interests in witch histories from all over the world and contemporary artists working with these ideas.
Research Page collecting interests in witch histories from all over the world and contemporary artists working with these ideas.
A playlist collating specifically musicians and producers, which influence my sound-works. I see them as a history/memory of echoes, sounds which come through in my present work.
The jewellery concept stems from Celtic weaving designs. This idea of meditative process. I spun this simple idea into my own mythology story about my dad who was a blacksmith, and that when Alliyah was made she was born out of the flames and her powers became a more effeminate version of his craftsmanship. It’s about how jewellery and wire weaving is like female armour, that it’s more hidden in the everyday wearing, that female craft can be harnessed to empower women. It’s like armour she’s made to protect herself from whatever might have happened due to toxic masculinity or masc agendas. It’s a way of embedding metal craft of women in history as well and re-interpreting masc armour in context for femme traits and celebrating these.
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Single thread embroidery design by hand, using metallic and silk threads. Design based on my performance persona Alliyah Enyo and Celtic embroidery designs from the Book of Kells.
An example of a Live Stream, this is outside of my art practice, buthttps://www.instagram.com/p/CFnmLTzHRYx/l inform possibilities to live stream my sound performances, I feel this format works well for me as a replacement for live performance.
I’m exploring the idea of the echo effect, an extension of my research I explored in my sound essay last year. I’m interested in how varied the phenomenon can be, for example in this sound piece there’s integrated zoom recordings of my vocals singing in the Pentland hills. The echo response is what I’ve used, there’s an effect which is almost chime like, so I’ve tried to riff this idea using metal chime sound objects I made. I’ve also explored the audio software I use (Ableton) to experiment with echo effect pedals, this itself shows how varied the effect is. I’m interested in phenomena involving echo such as listening to a sea shell is actually the echoing of your heartbeat in your ear. I’ve tried to emulate this a little in the piece by generation reverberations of the echo which sound wave like.
Extract from my sound essay “Through the lense of Ovidâs âEchoâ ,the greek mythology story, I want to interpret the electronic effects and vocal techniques used in Neshatâs Turbulent as a feminist device to emphasise the inequality of women in the music industry. âEchoâ references the Greek mythology story of a mountain Nymph who falls in love with Narcissus, I will use this to symbolise the power dynamic between men and women in the music world, specifically in Iran where Neshatâs focus lies. Resonance is how the sound can emotionally affect the body by resonating with it, vibrating in its cells and tissues- âEchoesâ are âphysical phenomenaâ and âmagical doctrines of sympathyâ. Echoes can cut through language and affect us on an emotional level. Perhaps this is because Echo endures as a âdisembodied and uncontrollable voice, we relate the uncontrollable to the emotional such as depictions of women throughout history as hysterical. Sounds such as screaming embody this and artistâs such as Sarah Vanhee explores collective screaming as a tool for âliberationâ, freeing women from a deeply embedded stereotype.
Echo âreflects, echo resonates and reverberates â moves in its own continuum â not simply to play-back what has come before, but to vibrate on.â Therefore the words hold resonance beyond the original meaning, it has the ability to be transformative. It is perhaps the most creative effect as through connection to the environment (environment is essential to echo) it can create its own response. The physical echo will always return a sound distinct from the original, bearing the traces of its travel through time and space.â Echo extends the ephemeral evidence of a kind of lineage, a collapsing of the tenses. It has past- been breathed, in present-sounds and in future-refracts. We hear its memories itâs actions and future possibilities, becoming an incredibly animate effect. Echo exists as an uncontrollable vibration which has the power to both take up space and reinvent itself. “