Her Noise was initiated by Lina Džuverović and Anne Hilde Neset in 2001 with an ambition to investigate music and sound histories in relation to gender, and to create a lasting resource in this area through building up an archive. In 2005 Lina and Anne co-curated Her Noise, an exhibition building on their research, which took place at South London Gallery, Tate Modern and Goethe Institut and gathered international artists who use sound to investigate social relations, inspire action or uncover hidden soundscapes. The exhibition included newly commissioned works by Kim Gordon & Jutta Koether, Emma Hedditch, Christina Kubisch, Kaffe Matthews, Hayley Newman and Marina Rosenfeld, as well as a series of talks and performances.
The Her Noise Archive, as it became called, formed the backbone of Her Noise and was developed by the curators, in collaboration with Emma Hedditch and Irene Revell. Made public initially during the exhibition at South London Gallery, the archive contains the collected research materials, interview and performance footage recorded by the curators and a number of guests during the development of the project. The archive includes books, fanzines, records, CDs, catalogues and other ephemera, as well as a growing number of on camera interviews with artists including Pauline Oliveros, Maryanne Amacher, Diamanda Galas, Else Marie Pade, Jutta Koether, Marina Rosenfeld, Thurston Moore, Jim O’Rourke, Kevin Blechdom, Kembra Pfahler, Kim Gordon, Lydia Lunch, Peaches and others.
After international touring throughout 2006 – 2008, the Her Noise Archive was donated to CRiSAP (Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice), London College of Communication. The archive now finds its permanent home in the University of the Arts, London Archives and Special Collections at London College of Communication, following a period of cataloguing by researcher Lee Ingleton, in collaboration with Cathy Lane (CRiSAP) and Irene Revell (Electra).
This donation marks a move to actualise the initial desire of Her Noise, to ‘create a lasting resource’, that also operates as a starting point for new investigations. This blog is part of this project to invoke a living archive: a series of guest curators, each from different areas within the worlds of sound-based works and experimental music, will be invited to contribute to the blog. Guest curators will turn the dial to artifacts in the archive that have resonated with them and offer personal directions for a future listening-out for people who speak up about gender and talk back with sound. The archive will also be used as a catalyst for further work and discussions with students at LCC and beyond and a selection of this work is also included in this blog.
Her Noise was originally realised with the support of the following organisations,
