Gail Priest
Gail Priest is a sound artist and writer based on Dharug and Gundungurra land (Katoomba, NSW, Australia). Her work spans soundtracks for dance, theatre and video, solo electro-acoustic performance as well sound installations for gallery contexts, both solo and in collaboration. She has performed her live compositions and exhibited sound installations nationally and internationally including in Japan, Hong Kong, Germany, France, Norway and the Netherlands. In 2015-16 she was awarded an Emerging & Experimental Arts Fellowship from the Australia Council. She has undertaken numerous radio commissions and releases music on her own label Metal Bitch Recordings as well as Flaming Pines, Endgame Records and room40. She curates events and exhibitions and writes fictively and factually about sound and media art, working for RealTime magazine for over 15 years. She has completed a PhD in creative sound theory at UTS.
Artist Statement
I have a multifaceted practice that explores the aural realm manifesting as installation, recording, performance, curation, writing and publishing. I focus on sound and listening—or sonaurality—because of its temporal, spatial, immersive and relational qualities. To listen is to be present, in the moment, with the sound. When we listen we are not separate and at a distance from sound but already embedded and implicated in it. This interrelation of listener and sound creates an intersubjectivity that offers rich experiential and conceptual possibilities. Within this I am particularly interested in levels of conscious and unconscious intentionality that come in to play with the shift from hearing—the biological process of receiving sound—and listening as the process by which sound becomes meaningful to us.
My work explores these ideas through a range of materials and methodologies that are tailored to each project. I use field recording, vocal processing and machinic noise presented though multi-channel audio, VR ambisonics, audio-based augmented reality sound walks, audiovisual compositions and physical assemblages. While my primary exploration is aural, I am interested in how visual elements such as video, kinetic objects, text and installation environments can encourage us to engage more actively with the sound.