Welcome
to correspondences. Our aim is to create lasting people connections across cultures through the medium of art.
to correspondences. Our aim is to create lasting people connections across cultures through the medium of art.
Edwina Stevens, The material thing is vibrating into the emptiness, 2019, single channel video (still), sound, 24:12 mins © Edwina Stevens
—Edwina Stevens
We are delighted to launch our second Room with a View by artist Edwina Stevens featuring an interview with the artist followed by her new audiovisual (AV) work made in connection with Part 1 of the project.
The starting point for our interview is The material thing is vibrating into the emptiness, an AV work Stevens presented in 2019 as a two-minute excerpt and a ‘long-play’, introduced in our newsletter earlier this month.
Like much of her oeuvre, the work investigates the human sense of time and place; how it may be captured, transformed and - to use her word - ‘transmuted’ through AV composition.
Thank you to everyone who attended the live stream with Stevens to discuss her new work Moonee Moonee Underpass 2020, made in connection with Part 1 of the exhibition. To experience the artwork and to watch a recording of our conversation, please scroll down towards the bottom of the page.
Please note— Our catalogues and interviews are best viewed via desktop, tablet or phone. They are not designed for print. All content is courtesy and copyright of the artist Edwina Stevens and correspondences.
with
Edwina Stevens (ES) & Emma Thomson (ET) of correspondences
ET—1) Eddie, you made The material thing is vibrating into the emptiness 2019 prior to COVID-19. However, it feels enormously relevant to our time; the experience of navigating the domestic space around us during this period of social isolation. It made me think of the above quote by Scottish artist Susan Philipsz. Sound defines and orients our sense of place, and yet it’s often the sense we take for granted. Hers is a simple observation, but it captures the complexity and vitality of the sense.
What do you think? Would you expand on the starting point for your work, its engagement with sight and sound?
ES— Thank you, Emma! I agree. Sound is a sense we consider secondary to sight. From my own experience, we are part of many varied experiences of the sonic and visual world. Living as we know it is instantaneously gratifying to the immediate senses, listening is a bit of a lost practice in a shouting world. I think a lot of my work has to do with a methodology of taking notice, focused through my main medium, which is sonic improvisation. The sonic environment we are surrounded by is a continuous improvisation. The in-between moments we come across through developing a sense such as hearing/listening, allows us to see our world in more consideration, without taking its complexity for granted.
This time of enforced slowing down must have had some effect on people in terms of 'noticings'. When I'm out walking in the evening, I often see people wandering. Not just walking for exercise but wandering off and letting things come to them, instead of this constant trajectory of end-goal or achievement. I think this is heartening. The world is an isolating place when you are surrounded by people who are too busy to notice their surroundings. Sound is a great way to reconnect; as anthropologist Eduardo Koh suggests in his quote above, its often the entry point into recognising the patterns in the world that can help us to understand our place within it.
ET—2) In this COVID-19 age, I have found the rapid shift towards the digital realm – and generally all things visual – quite challenging. I feel overstimulated visually speaking, which has reawakened my desire to engage auditorily. So, when I approached The material thing is vibrating into the emptiness 2019, I started with sound, then image and then I combined them both. I suppose that the most rewarding feelings came from connecting the two - into what Ryuichi Sakamoto calls ‘sound shapes’ which I rather love. But, it was the sound which communicated the work’s emotional energy.
In the context of our over-stimulated, but also physically disconnected state of the word, what do you think AV and sound art experiences can offer audiences?
ES— This is an interesting question. Without the presence of others physically, I think we relate differently, and this is possibly the source of the newer stresses. The material thing is vibrating into the emptiness 2019 is a comment on this phenomenon of over-stimulation. These simple visual effects, of light and shadow, abstracted and projected within my immediate domestic space is a ‘nothing’, a non-thing, in the broader capitalist-scheme of things. A pleasant ‘noticing’ perhaps, you know, ‘oh isn’t that nice’ etc., and it passes. But, it has so much more power than that in its simplicity, these small moments of interactions between elements, material and form. Inter-human is important but also these inter-material relationships in space and time.
Giving time to the light on the wall is an act of kindness to ourselves and others; towards the place where we are, in that we are attentive, placed, and open to possibilities. AV and sound art experiences can offer an opportunity to consider these manifestations via our senses in unusual ways. By drawing attention to certain phenomena through vision and sound, we can relate and dig around within ourselves to understand our relationships with our environment in a more positive and nurturing way. Not just in a ‘wellness’ sort of way, but in a deeper relationship that really has to happen, as a genuine sense of presence, if we are to survive as a species and co-exist within this amazing ecosystem that we share with trees, light, glass, the wall…
ET—3) I’m fascinated by the visual bias that exists in the process of perceiving the world. I’ve been running a little project which invites people to share an image or a sound that represents their feeling of a place. Suffice to say the bias is towards images. Faced with the same task, I turned to sound first. The sound of a creek, cicadas singing in trees, etc. Maybe this gravitation to sound comes from being impacted by hearing loss for most of my life, only to recover the sense through the marvels of modern medicine.
Many of your works such as Tī Kōuka in a Turnip field 2020, Mahitahi 2019-20 and Lands End – Rakiura/Ulva Island 2018 are environmentally or ecologically centred inquiries, which often look at the impact of settler invasion and the resultant cultural impact to environment and place.
Would you reflect a little on the visual bias? Do you think this bias and the lack of engagement with the sounds of our world – especially our natural world - can have an implication for how connected we feel with our environment, and in turn how we value it and eachother?
ES— There is a bias towards the visual, our eyes dominate. It's a human reality. Unless of course, we are unable to see, then hearing takes over as the main sense. I suppose it has a lot to do with how we are as beings, these two eyes on the front of our heads. We tend to move forwards with our eyes meeting objects, other eyes, environmental effects, physical phenomena etc. It's probably just that simple. I am short-sighted myself. When I was younger, I remember getting glasses and being blown away by the detail in a tree nearby. In terms of sounds, I grew up remotely, so I think the sonic environment was more balanced with the visual. I suppose we also have a very binary relationship to good and bad, wherein our judgements reject some sounds as noise and others as pleasant. When I was growing up, I was more exposed to the latter. To generalise, perhaps people in the city just constantly reject sounds as 'noise' as they are not perceived as nice. Still, many things are happening in between, sonically and visually, that we can pay attention to and circumvent these inner shutdowns.
Those works you mention, Tī Kōuka in a Turnip field 2020, Mahitahi, 2019-20 and Lands End – Rakiura/Ulva Island 2018 are minimal on the visual, almost just moving photographs. They still preference the soundscape, but into an AV format. Growing up in a rural/remote place (Taeiri Plains, Southern Te Wahi Pounamu, Aotearoa) impacted my connection to place. I know something else needs to occur for us as colonisers to understand deeper relationships to place. This deeper understanding, in turn, will benefit every place, being and culture that exists as part of this complex interrelation of time and space. We colonisers have been disconnected from our place. We lack the respect and action behind ideas of taking notice. That might be a harsh thing to say for some as of course we care for the places we are in, and make positive impacts where we can. However, we still exist within this framework that exploits and commercialises place, while the land waits underneath us for a time when we will listen a little closer.
Edwina Stevens, Lands End – Rakiura/Ulva Island, 2018, single channel video (still), sound, 27:59 mins © Edwina Stevens
ET—4) In The material thing is vibrating into the emptiness 2019, I think there is this 'otherworldly' quality. It calls to mind Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan (1964) (a sentiment elaborated on here). To me, this isn't a menacing feeling, or even 'eery'. It was just a feeling of the 'unknown', the 'un-nameable'. This sensation also registered with me when I watched She asked me to play a concerned stranger 2017. Slightly different, but synergistic. I think it is a feeling that comes from lots of light and shade - visually yes, but also auditorily – that communicates this sense of an intersection between darker and lighter feelings or thoughts.
Can you comment on this and the influence of this film and other films and filmmakers on your broader practice?
ES – She asked me to play a concerned stranger 2017 has a memory of sadness for me, but also contentedness and joy and so your comments are interesting. The work focuses on small domestic details and the idea of travelling between the city and more remote environments. Weaving together two loose narratives, it examines the small details and in-between moments that come from going to a place and being in that place. Those moments or ‘noticings’ can connect and ground us but also help us to question - is this about one or two people, is anything happening now or is this a memory? Kwaidan for me relates Japanese understandings of the spiritual realm as one that is present in the everyday. That we are not so distant from other worlds and other ways of perceiving, and that these can be negotiated gently, without getting scared off.
Another director and filmmaker that I strongly relate to is Tsai Ming Liang, a director from Taiwan. His work is ‘slow cinema’, which is my favourite genre of film in that it slows the idea of an edited narrative. It is completely adverse to the commercial storyline of more popular genres of film. Long-held shots, repeating narratives, even repeating characters swapping roles within different scenarios. Another director that has been very influential to me would be Bela Tarr, a Hungarian director also of the slow cinema genre. His films are bleak, but I find them so heartening. I think this stems from a feeling of acceptance, that life is not this glorious continuation of entertaining visual moments. It can be very challenging to watch these sorts of films, and that challenge to me outlines that there is a need for attention here.
ET—5) Eddie, in a recent interview, you talked about this idea of ‘disrhythm’ (described above) which is at the heart of your practice. I’m interested in this idea of a confrontation between different realities resulting in what you call a ‘shape-shifting moment’. It seems to fit with notions of mystic or meditative practice, but also this idea of perceiving afresh through a confrontation of oppositional viewpoints; which in turn can lead to surfacing and acceptance of new ideas.
Do you see your artistic process as meditative in a sense?
ES— ‘Disrhythm’ is something that surfaced at a similar time to She asked me to play a concerned stranger in 2016-17. I’m still figuring out what I mean by it. Perhaps it is a structure; a loose and shifting structure, whose directive is to destabilise any ideas of something to be relied upon. We can see right now that a virus can shake the very foundations of the structure within which we live and uphold, that it is quite flimsy. We think we are leading, when in fact we need to step down and merge with what’s around us, the reliable rhythm is an illusion, and the disrhythm is truer to the reality of existence. The way we live needs an overhaul, and if in some small way, appealing to the senses can be practised more widely and open our awareness a little more to let more meaning in. So, it is meditative, yes, but it’s also quite urgent, a request to take notice. My practice is also one of improvisation, which requires one to be open to the moment and whatever presents itself. I think our plans and our forward-thinking in terms of capitalism is extremely problematic and needs to be challenged.
Edwina Stevens, She asked me to play a concerned stranger, 2017, single channel video (still), sound, 7:15 mins © Edwina Stevens
ET—6) Related to this idea of ‘disrhythmns’ was your description of your process of ‘transmuting’ a sense of place in your work:
A place is everything. And when you're making a work from your recordings, it's essentially like transmuting. Trying to transmute the experience at that time, because it is very emotional, for me. It's very heart-related, you know? Transmuting that feeling of being there, and that feeling is comprised of all the sensory input of my body and its past experiences as well. It's feeling the wind. It's the sound of the wind. It's also the sound of the other little things, the interactions. The intra-actions that are going on all around. It's your eyes. Its memory, its present, it's everything…. and the process of ‘transmuting’ a sense of place in your work.
I loved this. It seems to capture the embodied nature of the art-making and viewing experience – body and mind, conscious and subconscious, memory and imagination – the full spectrum of the human thought. In your artwork, are you consciously searching for a way to create the conditions for these ‘shape-shifting’ moments? How do you know when it feels right, especially in terms of generating a certain experience for the viewer?
ES—I think that the idea is to remain open. I am prepared though in that I carry a camera and a sound recorder with me. I completely trust that the world around me will do what it does, and when it does, I might be there, I might be noticing, and I might record something. That might sound vague, but that is the idea, to remain vague; like playing on the term ‘terrain vague’ perhaps (in-between places, places in transition, etc.). When I am out in the world, I am looking, I am listening, and something happens, as things happen all the time. I’m trying not to control anything or preempt any particular outcome, but remain open and attentive as much as possible, to circumvent colonial and capitalist attitudes that are so damaging.
ET—7) One of things I notice about The material thing vibrating into the emptiness 2019 is that whilst sound and vision are connective, they never feel contrived. It is hard to describe, but there is a lot space in the work - what I described as 'long silences of black'. It feels like a very generative space. This became most clear to me when I watched the excerpt in conjunction with the ‘long-play’, which to me felt like companion pieces. I found this wonderfully refreshing. To me, it is also evidence of the experimental nature of your practice and the importance of the performative component. In a recent interview, you commented on the importance of the spontaneity in the making process.:
I never want to really go somewhere for any particular reason to film or record. I just like to be prepared for when the opportunities arrive because the nature of the moment is that you can’t make it happen and it will never happen the same way again. —Edwina Stevens
Could you comment a little on this?
The material thing is vibrating into the emptiness, 2019, live performance to own visuals © Edwina Stevens
ES—I love that, long silences of black, wherein black contains every colour! You know that is quite close to something, undefinable. I love undefinable ‘somethings’, they shape-shift and elude labelling or stagnation. It encapsulates this idea of the moment never happening the same way again; a way of appreciating life outside of the usual constructs.
In my experimental noise practice, there is so much listening required, for things to cohere, adhere, the moments where it comes together unplanned. You are responding to other ‘players’ on their path. For paths to meet, you have to remain open. There is so much to learn about life in this practice as well. Performance is a very vulnerable act, or at least I believe it should be. Vulnerability leads to genuineness. When we genuinely appeal to others, this is an act of kindness and expresses a sense of empathy shared.
I think spontaneity leads to honesty and genuineness in our dealings with others. It requires an immediate reaction that can be very telling. By removing the structure of agenda or a preconceived idea, we are left with space for something else to develop in response to its surroundings. To me, this space contains much more value than anything that could be preconceived.
Edwina Stevens, The material thing is vibrating into the emptiness, 2020, single channel video (still), sound, 24:12 mins © Edwina Stevens
ET—8) I want to look more closely at process and this embodied, sensorial act of walking or being in the places where you make work. We talked at one stage about almost becoming lost in them without agenda. It seems to fit with the idea of psychogeography. The author Will Self described walking as ‘a means of dissolving the mechanised matrix which compresses the space-time continuum.’ He went on to say he saw the solitary walker as ‘an insurgent against the contemporary world, an ambulatory time traveller.’ There is of course a long tradition of artists embedding themselves in places as mode of critique. However, I just felt this image of a solitary walker felt so connective.
Could you comment on this, perhaps in this context of your recent sound album Slippage 2019-20?
ES—Ah, I love that too! The 'ambulatory time traveller', that is appealing to me—the defiance in/of the slowing down. Politically and socially, yes, walking, it's a powerful thing. The lone walker can also be extremely vulnerable in many ways. In terms of my practice, walking is how I get there. I may have been driving, and all of a sudden pull over for no apparent reason to continue on foot. The pace of walking, the one foot in front of the other also being a meditative and slow practice, it affords time and space to the 'noticings'.
In Slippage 2019-20, I guess the pace of the shifting rhythm is one of walking. You can imagine walking while listening to this, perhaps. The piece operates as a shape-shifter. We are introduced to a melody that shifts; it is a set notation fed through a synthesizer I have put together (a modular Eurorack 6u system) that morphs and warps the original set rhythm into a disrhythm. As it wanders, I imagine a place that is like that place and moment when you notice a smaller happening. The piece breaks at one point, which in conventional music theory would be known as a modulation (a slight change in tone and key), and something breaks through. The rhythm is set off on another tangent momentarily, we continue, but the interruption lingers with us.
Overlapping rhythms, tones and textures build a composition that I relate to the sonic and visual world overlapped. That interrelation, where the sounds I make may conjure an image, may shift and be interrupted by thoughts and events around your body. The image it might conjure might be a feeling. If we look underneath a feeling it is usually also a place but not an obvious 'feeling'; a wavering sense that shimmers in/out of reach. For instance, that cymbal hanging off the clothes line, amplifying the rain through its metal form, augments the percussive qualities of the rain we often hear, before we drift off again, you know?
ET—9) Yes! I find Slippage 2019-20 to be an enormously captivating work/album. Could you tell us more about the starting point and what you were striving to explore in the work – perhaps also elaborating in reference to the origins for the album / track titles – particularly for 'Shapeshifter' and 'Sleep walk'?
ES—Slippage 2019-20 is a collection of recent works as well as a singular composition. I was working with a new system, and these tracks emerged. They relate by the coincidence of tonality that they share; through the instrument and the environment at the time. I.e. winter, pre covid-19, but also just crossing into the beginning of it all. 'Shapeshifter' was made while exploring the Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio ("MESS") equipment; which was my introduction to modular and eurorack synthesis. I brought this track into this collection due to its nature of shifting; every minute or so, it was a different composition that I came back to and re-arranged, quite quickly without over-consideration. The outcome being again one of motion, moving through various scenarios. The track titles tend to step forward quite quickly. Or they might be recurring words that occur in conversations I have with my partner Carly. She is a huge influence in my work and in the expansion of my practice.
The track 'Sleep Walk' came about differently; being a live performance in response to a friend's work of the same name. To sleep and walk at the same time. To dream and walk. To be floating and grounded simultaneously. This performance incorporates live generated tones and modulated samples along with long-form field recordings. The visuals are of an anonymous party. The film has been slowed and arranged to avoid direct contact/revelation of the faces of the party-goers. This track is intended to be experienced as a collaborative AV work; with the visuals from Kim Pieters’ film 'Sleep Walk' (see here). However, on its own, the audio track does seem to portray that feeling of uneasiness at an anonymous party; a place you don't quite know or understand, where the social context is undefinable so far. You wander through the place, considering elements, objects, rooms, it's a shifting space of no-time as well, it was a great collaboration for a live response to visuals.
ET—10) How does a work like Slippage 2019-20 connect with your broader sound album works like Yaw 2017, which perhaps feels a bit more musical at times?
ES—Yaw 2017 is an overlap, from ‘disrhythms’ into this more computer-based album. It was made purely on a computer, all instruments are hyperreal/unreal. I struggled with this a lot after making this, but I was limited at the time. I was living in a small place, and I didn’t have many analogue instruments anymore. This album traversed me to synthesis. It is very rhythmic, it’s so musically based, some of those tracks are my idea of ‘bangers’ you know? They still relate to the idea of a feeling of place, they still feel like an imminent response. I remember just laying these tracks down in the recording process, and essentially responding to myself. It was all done very quickly, I mix and master my own work. Instead of considering the resonant body of an instrument, or the sound of a place through field recording, I was using melody and composition – but it was all improvised. However, I suppose all processes of composition involve improvisation. I don’t know, I have no idea how most of this happened, and I can never really repeat it, it simply came out that way.
ET—11) In the documentary Coda Ryuichi Sakamato says: The world is full of sounds that we don’t hear as music. But, the sounds are very interesting musically. So, I have a strong desire to incorporate them. A sonic blending that is both chaotic and unified’. I’ve been thinking about that comment quite a lot while listening to Slippage 2019-20 and it feels very fitting. Chaotic and unified. What do you think?
ES—I love Ryuichi’s approach to music and life (which echoes Kwaidan), which refracts the present moment, and these shifts between realities and time-space continuums. I love the playfulness in his listening and responsiveness in his improvisations. He is very proficient with music composition but he can also let go of that structure. He can shift his ear between everyday sound, and music, and does so in his composition, it’s a really beautiful and genuine practice. The blending of sounds could be seen as a respect perhaps, that you are listening and that you align yourself internally with the vibrations carried in the air. Alignment, attentiveness and respectful acknowledgement. Slippage 2019-20 overall, is the first place where this crossover occurs to me more overtly. I don’t mean to neglect the city, the city still exists as something stronger, deeper, the city makes all sorts of amazing sounds. Through its interrelations of materiality, resonances, and kinetic events it sings and drones and humms. I often collect these underlying tones in my head which seem to emerge later in my work through improvisation.
ET—12) Eddie, to finish, I’m interested in how you see audiences engaging with sound works like Slippage. In a recent interview you talked about online presentation, this idea of focusing in on the practical side of things e.g. use of headphones, etc. However, you also touched on your intentions to try to arrange and expand recordings to engage the viewer more so that they can feel as though they are there, at that place of the recording through certain technological choices, arrangements and mixing techniques.
Could you expand a bit more on what that might encompass? Does this also extend to disclosure of precise locations or is this more about a move towards hyperrealist audio representations?
How do you feel about people walking with the work, a guided experiential experience that they might then follow with the own listening and looking afterwards? What would be the end goal here do you think – especially these days where there is a general reduction in the usual ‘white noise’ around us as we walk outside?
ES—You know, I think initially I meant technologically, but Slippage provides such a talking point for this. It’s true, the augmented representation of sound in headphones is one thing, but nothing compares to applying the same practices I have been talking about during this interview. Any location is good enough, as these moments are everywhere, all the time. By remaining open we keep ourselves able to notice these opportunities to listen and look closer to that which is right in front of us. I think that no matter how someone listens to Slippage, or any of this work, they may be able to relate in some way in lines with the very same ideas I engaged to produce these tracks and videos. To be honest though, I always love the idea of people listening to these tracks while on a train, I don’t know why exactly – but something about the trajectory of the tracks, how you glide along, the perspective like film passing in front of your eyes. I don’t particularly want to direct anyone to do anything. If anything, just taking time to consider the smaller moments in life and reflect upon your own relationships with these happenings, is enough.
by
Edwina Stevens
Press the play button below to join us in Stevens’ auditory room with a view. When you’re ready, walk through the corresponding images at your own pace. Moonee Moonee Underpass 2020 reflects upon the process of stepping out of the home during the COVID-19 lockdown. It aims to draw the viewer/listener into a conversation about the importance of attentive listening, noticing, wandering without agenda, and much more.
This project and recordings were made on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, the traditional custodians of the land on which we may listen - sovereignty has never been ceded. We pay our respect to the Wurundjeri Elders, the land and its sounds, past, present, and future, and extend this respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait people from other communities.
Note:—Thank you to everyone who attended the live stream with Stevens to discuss her new work Moonee Moonee Underpass 2020. To watch to a recording of the conversation, please scroll down.
Please refer below for a recording of our conversation. Don’t forget to also check out Stevens’ latest album released by Music Company entitled ‘looking for glass’ - access at Bandcamp here.
Edwina Stevens (Otepoti, Aotearoa/Narrm-Melbourne) is an audiovisual artist working across composition, live performance and installation focusing on field recordings, synthesized sound, found acoustic elements/instruments and obsolete tech. A self-taught musician, she takes an improvised approach to music and sound design influenced by her involvement in the Aotearoa experimental noise scene. Her work investigates audiovisual processes of engaging with places that are improvisational, collaborative and incidental. Her practice explores the entanglements of the temporal, material and experiential through chance encounters, tangential processes and unanticipated outcomes.
Stevens also performs under the moniker of ‘eves’. Since 2011 she has presented live visual and sound performance works at major events across New Zealand and Australia (FFFFFF, eves) including Lines of Flight Festival, Ladyz In Noys Australia, Sisters Akousmatica 2016, Nowhere Festival Auckland 2014, Make It Up Club Melbourne. She has also recorded and released three albums (eves.bandcamp.com) and was nominated for The Age Music Victoria Awards/Best Experimental-Avant Garde Act for 2015.
Stevens is currently undertaking a Research Masters Degree at Deakin University, School of Communication and Creative Arts under the supervision of Cameron Bishop, Ann Wilson and cultural advisor Liz Cameron, researching possibilities in the methodologies of transmutation of place via the sound artist. She is also a senior lecturer at Melbourne Polytechnic.
