This past February at the CTM Festival in Berlin, a panel was held to discussed the topics of Gender, Sound, and Technology. The panel included speakers Sadie Plant, Marie Thompson, Fender Schrade, and Susanne Kirchmay. It was moderated by Annie Goh. A brief description of the talk, provided by Goh, gives more detail on the ideas that led to the formation of this panel.
Recent discourse on the subject of women and electronic music falls tendentially into two categories; either
writing forgotten histories of pioneering work of women such as Daphne Oram, Elaine Radigue, Delia
Derbyshire, Pauline Oliveros, Maryanne Amacher amongst many others, or with reference to the recent
statistics via female:pressure, highlight the huge quantitative discrepancies between male and female
musicians, DJs and producers represented at labels and music festivals worldwide.Taking root from an abstract ontological level, in which binary categories of sex and gender have long been
refuted (biologically as well as culturally), the panel aims to assess the interactions between sound, gender
and technology from various philosophical and artistic positions.
The discussion, recently published by Goh, can be heard below.
Detailed bios of the speakers can be found here.
CTM is a prominent international festival dedicated to contemporary electronic, digital and experimental music, as well as the diverse range of artistic activities in the context of sound and club cultures.