In and out of the sound studio

Abstract

This article reports on the first phase of a four-year, multi-university Canadian research project called ‘In and Out of the Studio’. The intention of this project is to study the experiences and working practices of women sound producers in Canada, and to produce a multimedia computer installation and set of articles about their ideas, approaches and philosophies. We are studying gender issues that affect the work of these women in areas as diverse as film sound recording and post-production, sound engineering, radio art, performance art, experimental music, audio documentary production, and web sound. This is a wide range of disciplines, with their associated professional formations. What links the experiences of these diverse cultural workers is their focus on organising sound, and their gender. The first phase of the research focuses on formations: the following phase will concentrate on working practices through a discussion and analysis of specific recent works produced by the participants. The second part of this article explores the working processes of Hildegard Westerkamp in her composition of Gently Penetrating Beneath the Sounding Surfaces of Another Place (1997), through an interview with Westerkamp conducted in 1997. This interview will be used as a model for the in-depth studio interviews in the present study.