AUDIOFOUNDATION (Auckland, Aoteroa)

ORAL HISTORIES, INTERVIEWS, AND PUBLICATIONS

Interviews with and essays/works by a range of figures involved in New Zealand experimental music.

Interview originally featured here :
http://www.audiofoundation.org.nz/oral-histories-interviews-publications


Edwina Stevens
 & Sam Longmore

SL: What have you been up to these last few weeks?


ES: Sort of collapsing and reeling on a bit of an emotional roller coaster. Reflecting a lot on reality and the nature of capitalism. Reading Donna Harraway - specifically Staying with the Trouble. Going through old projects and finishing them! Or at least feeling like there is finally space to do so.


SL: Seemed there was initially a great deal of uncertainty around what sort of support (if any) the Australian govt might afford NZ folks living and (otherwise) working there...
 


ES: I think, that I have to resign to the fact that I live somewhere else to where I feel at home.
 


SL: Are there some threads from Harraway that are particularly resonant atm?

ES: For Harraway, the contrasts in larger compartments of philosophy relating to human numbers and exploitation, with her Capitalocene, Chthulucene, Anthropocene discourse I like how she derails the importance of the human, this is not about us etc. I strongly relate to that, there are entire mushy, expanding and overlapping worlds going on we need to pay more attention to. In terms of my experience here...Australia is always a scary place for me, it's not kind, it is when I get out of the city. I have very extreme and blunt perspectives and don't mean to judge the excellent community here, I mean it in a broader sense. I don't expect any support from this place, and I'm almost ok with it. I am lucky enough to have enough support around me even if I have nothing monetary. I will be able to get by. I have been thinking a lot about how I instantly reverted to more 'Dunedin' ways of living, which is essentially, with very little and you work with what you have. This has made me feel more at home – to relate to what I said earlier. This isolation is not too difficult for me as an introvert. I struggle a lot with the pace and energy of colonial metropolitan so-called Australia as it vibrates and pushes around. The general public here are constantly looking for loop holes to benefit their realities. Which is mirrored in Scott Morrison's lack of clear, concise decision making. I find it unsettling, when I have to go out, to see everyone acting like nothing is wrong. Except for maybe a few people, it depends on what suburb you live in which adds complexity. Most friends of mine are very actively self isolating and being careful and considerate, but generally... In short I have extreme NZ fomo and wish I was not here. Im currently listening to this: https://soundcloud.com/user-275864738/viral-counterpoint-of-thecoronavirus-spike-protein-2019-ncov

SL: Any observations around sound and / or art in recent weeks?

ES: With less people around there are more insects and frogs in my area, and more birds. On the flip side there are also more sirens, which I'm not sure, but seem clearer because of the white noise of traffic decreasing... More collaborations seem to be happening internationally, and successfully. I'm not sure on the live streaming that I have seen. I still find it hard to relate, and as I'm not particularly missing the live environment of sound yet I think I'm not as excited about it as others are. I'm noticing a lot more sound signifiers when out walking, I have to stop and turn my head slowly to get stimulus, when before this I was maintaining a sense of personal aural equilibrium amongst all the traffic and noise by understanding it more as a composition - now that it has quietened right down and other sounds are resurfacing. Everything was quite consistent before, all encompassing. Now things are more directional and focused. Before the diffusion of sound seemed more pervasive, now things have a more honed location as the white noise decreases.

SL: Do you have thoughts about the future?

ES: I don't want things to go back to how they were. Again my perspectives are a bit blunt and extreme Imagination is so squashed when you have so many structures. Curation and gallery, it's all a structure. But art exists in its own moment of production or noticing or whatever, and it has so many forms.

SL: Totally. And it also has value in artistic production/experimentation, in 'doing' as an end in itself – as a personal pursuit.

ES: Of everything, I think community is the most important thing. This to me does not constitute art openings... or... events... its the connections, and there are other ways to have these connections with each other and our surroundings and our practices. I am always keen for a DIY space of course, but these always existed without funding. However they need the economic collapse to exist in the in-between as they used to. This is where isolation forces internal reflections and hopefully clarity, to strip things back and make things less complex, because you now can't have everything you want anymore.

SL: You might have some interesting thoughts about the recent Australian Art Council funding, or the lack of it, then?

ES: Yes, this is actually what I'm talking about. Its difficult for me to say though as a lot of great things come from these spaces, such as Westspace. To be defunded for 4 years is huge. This is going to have a huge impact - but I hate to say it - the art might get more interesting and pop up in interesting ways. Sometimes, we have to let go of certain structures and habits, especially when capitalist ideas prevail and we are always subordinate. The disjunction is required. The difficulty. But maybe that's my stoicism. This is why I like noise.