Sisters with Transistors Film Screening

Join us for a screening of Sisters with Transistors, followed by a panel discussion with Louise Harris, Curlew, Victoria Morton, and Janet Beat! This event is presented as part of programme of events responding to Scott Myles’s exhibition at GoMA.

The screening is presented in partnership with Glasgow Life at Kelvin Hall.

SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS is the untold story of electronic music’s female pioneers, remarkable composers who embraced machines and their liberating technologies to utterly trans form how we produce and listen to music today.

The remarkable world of electronic music has been constantly evolving since its inception in the early 20th century. From the unlimited possibilities of digital synthesisers, to the recent analog recording revival; from the impossibly perfect pitch of Auto-Tune, to the democratisation of music-making for a generation of ‘bedroom’ producers – each of these extraordinary developments is directly connected to the work and artistry of the women featured in “Sisters with Transistors.” Clara Rockmore, Daphne Oram, Bebe Barron, Delia Derbyshire, Maryanne Amacher, Pauline Oliveros, Wendy Carlos, Eliane Radigue, Suzanne Ciani, and Laurie Spiegel are among the greatest pioneers of modern sound and we continue to feel their influence yet most people have never heard of them.

Feature documentary, 84 min, UK | Written and Directed by Lisa Rovner | Produced by Anna Lena Vaney
Website: www.sisterswithtransistors.com | Instagram: @sisterswithtransistors

Louise Harris is an audiovisual composer, and Professor of Audiovisual Composition at The University of Glasgow.

She specialises in the creation and exploration of audiovisual relationships utilising electronic music, recorded sound and computer-generated visual environments. Louise’s work encompasses fixed media, live performance, and large-scale installation pieces, with a recent research strand specifically addressing Expanded Audiovisual Formats (EAF) and audiovisual approaches to data exploration. Her work has been performed and exhibited nationally and internationally, and she has published extensively on her own work and on approaches to teaching creative practice in Higher Education. Her first monograph, , was published in 2021.

Curlew (Gill Higgins, she/her) is a celtic alt-folk multiinstrumentalist. She trained in the NHS in reconstruction surgery and is currently working on her thesis in cell engineering at University of Glasgow.

Her music incorporates acoustic string, wind and percussive instruments, field recordings, synthesisers and loop pedals. With ethereal vocals and grounding drones, she explores the interaction of nature and science, and the way that music can unite strangers. Curlew was granted a place on the Glasgow Library Of Synthesised Sound, Introduction to Electronic Music course. Her ambient electronic-folk soundscapes exhibited in Glasgow Botanic Gardens’ Kibble Palace as part of Glasgow Science Festival ‘24 (Sound Thought). She is releasing this body of work as an album at an immersive event with surround sound and visuals at The Dream Machine on 17th November.

“...it is a nigh on silent packed audience that is hooked asshe skilfully and beautifully blends layers ofvocal and musicthrough use of loop pedals.Switching between harmonium and keyboard, her set is a bewitching one...” Geoff Shaw, Resound

Victoria Morton lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland, and Fossombrone, Italy. She studied painting and mixed media at Glasgow School of Art, 1989 - 1995. Morton is also a self taught musician whose musical collaborations range from indie punk, experimental, psyche folk and improvisation. In the late 1990’s she was a founding member of installation art and performance group Elizabeth Go.

Morton’s art has encompassed painting, sculptural assemblages, and sound. Her recent paintings vary in scale, opacity, colour and spatiality, each composition intricately and intuitively developed, exploring unfolding psychological experience.

Significant solo exhibitions have been at Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco; The Modern Institute, Glasgow; Sadie Coles HQ, London; Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum, Boston; Bonner Kunstverein; Rat Hole, Tokyo and Inverleith House and Fruitmarket, Edinburgh. She was included in ‘Surface Work’, a survey of female abstraction at Victoria Miro in London. Among her commissioned installations is ‘Antiphonic Waves’, at the Royal College of Music in London.

Suckle, Muscles of Joy, Sound of Yell and SOTTO VOCE are some of the bands she has played in as a musician. She has also appeared as a guest with Amor and Rev Magnetic. Solo sound collages and song suites have been broadcast on Radiophrenia.

Janet Beat (b. 1937) studied music at Birmingham University. She received the G.D. Cunningham Award for research in Italy. She was a freelance horn player before taking up various lecturing posts notably at the RSAMD (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) 1972, where she established the electronic music & recording studios & Glasgow University, 1996 where she has been an Affiliate & Honorary Research Fellow.

She has written for the concert hall film & TV. Her music as been performed on all five continents & broadcast worldwide. She is a writer, journalist & editor. In 2019 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Scottish Women In Music. An album of Janet’s music was released in 2019, "Pioneering Knob Twiddler" which led to interviews on Swedish Radio, BBC Radio Scotland & with Kate Molleson on Radio 3 & and a portrait concert in BBC Scotland's Tectonics Festival 2022.

Information on Kelvin Hall accessibility can be found here.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Kelvin Hall Lecture Theatre, 1445 Argyle Street, Glasgow, United Kingdom