Sisters Akousmatica is Pip Stafford and Julia Drouhin are at Adhocracy for the early stages development of The Silent Key.
Sisters Akousmatica
Pip Stafford and Julia Drouhin create curatorial and written international projects concerning collective radio practices, auditory-spatial exploration and the intersection of gender and emergent art forms , to support, promote and cultivate women’s voices in public space. Focusing on the concept of akousma – sound removed from its source – their projects provide a space to examine the possibilities of invisible and ephemeral radiophonic world.
They were the recipients of 2016 Next Wave Festival’s Emerging Curator Program presenting Sisters Akousmatica, a street radio acousmonium with 8 female performers and 2 curators walking for 7 hours in 7 public spaces in Melbourne, in partnership with Liquid Architecture, Signal, 3CR and The Channel.
Sisters Akousmatica brought together 10 women sound artists over a 7 hour walk for 7 performances which were interspersed with programmed content by 3CR, focusing on the historical and on-going contribution of women to community radio.
Sisters Akousmatica has become an artistic and curatorial umbrella, awarded by the Arts Tasmania’s Artist Investment Program 2016 to produce a retreat for women sound artists, provide workshops (crystal radio and FM transmitter building) and develop new work.
Pip and Julia perform as well as an improvised duo Super Occult Cosmophon using radios as instruments, amplified mineral samples, lovingly re-kindled transistor parts and looped sources in acts of sound divination and occult listening to conjure delicate spirit noises and unleash domestic imps.