Digital Music and Sound Arts doesn’t mean a men-only club: we support equal participation to the course by male and female artists and producers; an aim that is still difficult to achieve as female students often either choose more safe pathways or are not confident enough to choose a creative sound course.

It needs to be said that some of our most exceptional work in this course has been created by female students and some of our notable alumni are female who hold competitive posts in the field. We want to make our students feel empowered through the course to explore their unique creative perspectives, to take risks, to feel inspired and to be self-driven.

In celebration of International Womens Day, we would like to use this space to precent some of the work produced by our students and alumni which we feel give a well informed perspective of the breadth of creative outputs that the students have developed over the years. There are of course many notable student works missing from this feature and we hope to be able to bring it to the foreground in another occassion in the near future!

We begin with Jade Gunner who is a student currently in her first year in the course. Jade’s ‘Watercolour Spaceship’ is a fascinating exploration of colour, texture and timbre reminiscent of expressionist painting.

Merging music with dance as well as other forms of art and media is something that we encourage our students to do as part of their learning process. Aki Purser is a student currently in the third year of the course who has been developping an intersting and unique body of audiovisual work. Her piece I, Omega encapsulates the intensity of her work combining contemporary dance aesthetics, electronic collage and experimental visuals.

Olivial Louvel, currently in her second year in our course, is exceptional in creating fascinating synapses Facross voice, computer music and digital narrative. You can enjoy her work in situ at the Roayl Pavilion Gardens via the ReHear audiowalk.

'My Crown' by Olivia Louvel from Cat Werk Imprint on Vimeo.

Rebecca Davis aka Ecka Mordecai is the artist behind our beautiful banner but also an alumni of the course. Ecka, currently a freelance artist, cellist and curator, has developed a subtle yet texturally layered palette of sounds, images, objects and actions while studying in the course. Sand:blink is a wonderful audiovisual experience into her unique world of microsounds and textures.

Guoda Diržytė is an experimental music instruments designer, composer and sound artist living between the UK and Lithuania. A recent graduate from our course, Guoda received the Nagoya (Partner University, Japan) Award of Excellence for her excellent piece Kokon Dansetsu Ma [古今 伝説 間] which she developped during a residency in Nagoya.

Beth Chesser is an artist experimenting with sound, noise and music and how they work combined with moving image and new media. ‘Enso’ is her final degree piece for our course, a beautifu stop motion animation film.

Amanda Brooks is a musician, composer and sound artist currently in the second year of our course. She is the lead singer of the band Undercover Agends and her work has been featured in Lewes Light Festival, ReHear Audio Walk (Brighton Digital Festival 2017) and more recently in a fantastic ‘Christmas’ compilation entitled ‘View from a hill’ by the eclectic label Linear Obsessional.

Last week’s DMSA feature presented the work of currenty third year student Jasmyn Bloch. Jasmyn’s powerful mix of voice, femininity and electronics is beautifully demonstrated in her piece Alter, a celebration of the feminine and of women and a great way to end this feature!