Edwina Stevens (eves)
is an audio-visual artist
working across live performance, installation and spatial sound
design. She uses analogue audio equipment, found acoustic instruments, as well as
field recording and video equipment such as a DSLR camera and
portable audio recorders to make minimal
and haunting soundscapes and filmic portraits of places and times.
Through
composition, improvisation and performance, Edwina draws on material
created during 'self-directed residencies' or as a result of impromptu travel, emphasizing the significance of being open to the unforeseen and
accepting of the erroneous or accidental. In this manner of engaging
with sound, she embraces the improvisational,
collaborative and incidental nature working in and with environmental sound while rejecting problematic notions of presupposition, exploitation and control. Her practice is characterized by this continual challenging of
colonial perspectives on place, and specifically her questioning of
Anglo-colonial concepts of ownership, boundary, utilization and
value. Her pieces often
unfold following an improvisation or a serendipitous opportunity to
generate or collect a sound or image, and combine sonic material – principally field recordings, synthesized sounds, and those which emanate from obsolete technologies – and visual content, to investigate the experiential nature and political
and cultural context of a given place.
Edwina also worked and curated within two project spaces, None Gallery (Dunedin, 2006-2012) and Rice and Beans (Dunedin,
2011-2012). These spaces frequently exhibited and hosted artists
locally and internationally as a no-cost, open spaces for
experimental artists and their practices.
Alongside
her audio-visual gallery-practice, Edwina performs under the moniker, eves, and since 2011 has presented visual and sonic pieces at a
number of high profile events across New Zealand and Australia.
Frequently these performances occur in collaborative and
self-structured contexts and have taken place at the likes Lines of
Flight Festival, Ladyz In Noyz, Next Wave Festival, and Nowhere
Festival. As eves, Edwina has produced a number of albums (for
which she was nominated for Best Experimental Avant-Garde Act of
2015 by The Age Music Victoria Awards). She also performs as one half
of the experimental noise duo Torrential Brain with Jennifer Tait and
as bass player in long-running Dunedin noise rock band Thee
Aesthetics.
She
is currently a senior lecturer at Melbourne Polytechnic and is
undertaking a Practice-led research project at Deakin University.
LINKS:
Disrhythms
(Edwina Stevens)
https://www.disrhythms.net/
eves
(Edwina Stevens)
http://eves.bandcamp.com/
Edwina Stevens
https://vimeo.com/eves
