interview by Simon Sellars

screenshot from Untitled 2003, by Camilla Hannan & Cassandra Tytler

Originally published on Sleepy Brain, 15 August 2003.

360 Degrees: Women In Sound was held as part of Liquid Architecture 4, the national sound art festival run by the ((tRansMIT)) collective. 360 Degrees was inspired by the need to address a perceived gender imbalance within the sound art community. It consisted of two separate exhibitions and a live sound performance, exploring short and long form composition, quadraphonic installation, sound sculpture and the relationship between sound, video and digital media. The curators were Arnya Tehira and Sianna Lee and the featured artists were Ai Yamamoto, Bec Charlesworth, Cat Hope, Cassandra Tytler, Camilla Hannan, Jasmine Guffond, Anne-Marie Kohn, Claire Conroy, Jean Poole, Louise Terry, Jennifer Sochackyj, Geoff Robinson and Sally Blenheim.

INTERVIEW WITH ARNYA TEHIRA
– Simon Sellars

How did 360 Degrees come about?

The idea was to gather and present sound works by women from all over Australia. We want to get women working in sound out there. The research has been done: figures continually demonstrate that there is always a majority of men involved in sound-based projects. We were happy to be able to address this situation, in a way that can only be considered positive: by integrating more women working with sound into Liquid Architecture’s program.

Tell me about your philosophy as a sound artist.

I come from the school of sound appreciation: thinking about and appreciating the qualities of sound in the environment I live in. I started getting serious about sound in its technical capacities when I was learning audio engineering. After that, I tried a few different paths before ending up on the artist conveyer belt. I’ll always be a student of sound and art – I almost finished my BA in Media Arts at RMIT – but I intend to continue to experiment and work along the path my ideas take me. My philosophy? If the avenue isn’t there, pave it. Describe your working relationship with Sianna Lee.

We were both involved with the formation of the project, the selection of works and the operations of exhibiting. Of course it’s always more supportive to be working with another person: managing such a huge project couldn’t possibly have been achieved alone. I met Sianna at Media Arts School in a soundtrack class. She graduated last year and has been working hard on her first EP with Andromeda, the group she plays guitar and is the vocalist for. Sianna has been really integral in keeping 360 on the rails. In its early inception, there was the possibility that the project may not have happened due to the ‘concept creator’, Thembi Soddell, opting to take a back seat role. Thankfully, Sianna continued on and we managed to pull it together.

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