Distance therapy by claire rousay & e fishpool

LE109

claire rousay is based in Los Angeles. Her music zeroes in on personal emotions and the minutiae of everyday life – voicemails, haptics, environmental recordings, stopwatches, whispers and conversations – exploding their significance.

E.Fishpool is a Yuin artist based across Budawang and Walbanja Country. Their work maps processes of unlearning and (re)learning identity through sampling sound, dialect and field recordings.

Distance therapy was composed in response to Sol LeWitt’s ‘Wall drawing #955, Loopy Doopy (red and purple)’ (2000), installed in the John Kaldor Family Hall at the Art Gallery of NSW, as an enhanced audio reading of LeWitt’s work.

Artist notes:

Creating this piece over email felt, to me at least, extremely fluid and relaxed compared to other long distance collaborations I’ve been involved in. Both mine and Emily’s roles seemed extremely flexible, no one was expected to bring anything specific to the collaboration outside of what occurred in the moment(s). The time difference between locations was an unexpected element. Some days I would wake up to a new draft of the piece or an email with questions about what I had sent before going to sleep the prior evening. I am not sure how this played a role in the creation of the piece but I can imagine the pace of the project impacted it in some way.

Listening to any musical work is such a personal thing. I think it is important to meet people where they are at, with no expectations or rules on how they interact with the work. Hopefully it is with an open heart and mind – beyond this though, I don’t know. claire rousay

The collaboration was kind of challenging. Mostly due to the distance and time difference. But now looking back I can understand how this contributed to the work’s form. It’s kind of sparse but I think that’s what makes it so beautiful. Some of the contributions don’t feel finished, I think that’s what I like about it the most. e fishpool

claire rousay is a Canadian-American musician, composer, and artist currently living in Los Angeles.

clairerousay.com