Ellen Moffats Studio and surrounding area

During our class with Ellen Moffat I explored the fifth floor of the Charter House Furniture building as well as its parking areas, alleys and shops surrounding the building.

Outside of the building I looked at the layout of the spaces, the in between the buildings, overgrown parking lots and an unused railway. The space seemed vacant, occupied only for fleeting moments of travel by the few stopping in the area so my loitering presence in the space attracting looks from others. Lacking participants, the space did not have opportunity for the social body to reflect their gender upon it. So does the space have a gender? Do spaces require occupants to hold a gender?



The unkempt nature that overwhelmed the neglected human made railway shows an urban overgrowth that is refreshing from the strong architectural lines of the groomed areas of the city, reflecting the lack of presence in the space. What does this tell us of the gender of the space, and how is the gender determined by the man made structures and the natural elements present in the space?

In terms of my presence as a female in the space I felt intimidated, on guard for others who may refute my existence there. While there was no masculine dominance in the space itself, it held potential for a masculine presence to overwhelm my feminine presence in the space. I would not call the space masculine, but I may label it antifeminine because of the lack of safety in the space, erasing the desire and acceptance to linger.




The architecture surrounding the area was dominantly designed for automobiles and felt impersonal, hard and cold. I felt this space to not only be genderless but to be completely neuter, void of both femininity and masculinity. With a few old warehouses still in use, most of the surrounding blocks are concrete foundations and walls greeting the passing pedestrian. From the flaneurs point of view the area is little more than topless tunnels directing traffic from building to building, windows and displays set too high for the pedestrian to engage. The space reflects the automobiles use of the space rather than pedestrian movement and like the unused back alleys directly surrounding the studio building, seems genderless because of the lack of occupants.

The interior of the building was very feminine due to the commercialization of the second floor into a furniture shop, but the fifth floor that held Moffat’s studio had a genderless space, the architecture from bare brick, concrete and plywood walls. As studios tend to do, it offered walls as blank canvas for creating work, but that blankness carried into the gender of the space. The space was tidy, white and like most warehouse studios I have encountered. This was reflected in Moffat’s Studio as well, her tidy piles of technology somehow remaining gender neutral in contrast to Tomas Begin’s technology at PAVED, which immediately struck me as masculine.
check out Ellens work at www.ellenmoffat.ca

Gender in Sound Art - Thomas Begin and Ellen Moffat

Last Friday night I attended the opening in the PAVED gallery. The room consisted of two guitars on a stand in the center of the space laid down like a table with a bass above, attached to the ceiling with the playing surface parallel to both guitars. Each guitar had a couple of elastic bands that were tied to the strings, and using a maze of brightly coloured yarn stretched across the room it became in interactive abstract sound piece by the audiences interaction with the yarn pulling out notes from the playing surface of the instruments.

The work itself created this reverberating constant sound that changed tone as it bounced off the elastic bands, creating a chain reaction that resulted in an abstract reverberating sound. The work predominantly engaged the male audience; the only female bodies I observed had a comfort level with the equipment that I do not possess, yet the men seemed uninhibited in their interaction.

Seeing this work coincided with my reading of Bradon LaBelle’s Seeing Ursound: Heldegarde Westerkamp, Steve Peters and the Soundscape, which discusses the existence of background noise and the sounds of the environment as artistic performance. Westerkamp looks at the existence of sound as a fleeting experience, one that gets lost with the changing environment and a meeting with Ellen Moffat during class to see her work, discuss sound artists and the do a sound walk in the city.

Moffat offered us one tangible work to show us the interactive nature her soundwork takes. Using a board that you walk on to activate four speakers set into a mirroring board facing upwards and containing various organic materials, the frequency of the speakers vibrating the contents, creating an organic yet technological sound. (Shown Below) Our discussions of capturing the environment and inserting it into a different environment such as a gallery space created a new environment, one transmitted through man made means. The interaction of the piece seemed a lot friendlier towards non technological people, allowing a less elite interaction with the sound creation. The design lent itself to bodies and was less intimidating that Begin’s design, though that was probably more because of my naïve fear of musical equipment. I was interested in the technology that created the interactive platform for the audience. It reminded me of a genderless play; I felt a child like glee, of a time where I was unaware of gender differences but just a body, in this case merely a mass to activate the pressure sensitive equipment.

I also enjoyed her play with the mixture of technology and natural materials. The speakers activated them in a way impossible to nature, yet acting in very natural ways as if falling or blowing in the wind, only contained in their tiny speaker bowl. The sounds gave a feeling of human interfered nature, of bringing the outdoor environment indoors creating a different ambiance with the inclusion of technologically produced sounds.

I didn’t feel a particular gender in either Begin’s or Moffats work because of their dependence on an ungendered interaction, but because of their similar nature of interactivity, sound and technology they gain a gender construction in comparison to each other. I can feel the masculinity in Begin’s piece, perhaps because of the presentation of the piece and the attention to detail in creating an installation of artwork rather than an environment. Begin’s work was constructed as a means to activate sound through equipment, whereas Moffats work paid more attention to the detail of design and connection to natural materials. Does that define the gendering of the work? Does the attention to detail indicate femininity? Does her connection to nature evoke femininity? Do the works themselves gender the space they are located in?

Eddie Izzard in Regina

What a perfect way to spend a night during my class in Saskatoon on gendered spaces than the go see comedian Eddie Izzard, an executive Transvestite from Wales. Yemen. Doesn’t matter.

If you don’t know Eddie Izzard, you are missing out a great gender bending experience. Even when Eddie is not dressed in heels, he has a great sense of style that is matched by his strong opinions of religion, gender and language and excellent mimetic skills.

I was very interested in the variety of people that were attending the Eddie Izzard concert. I saw dreadlocks and Mohawks, a strong homosexual representation and some wonderful gender inappropriate dress mixed in with a strong heterosexual crowd. It is hard to find people who enjoy Eddie Izzard so it was nice to see a mixed crowd within the boundaries of one space.

The Conexus Center and the mix of gendered identities within the space seemed to clash, mostly because of the architecture of the space. While the theatre itself is built to mutate identities from production to production, the space holds stuffy bourgeoisie architecture, designed for upper class events and convenient customer flow. The lobby space reeked more of whiskey on the rocks and martinis than beer and held a certain patriarichal dominance that always makes me awkward in community auditoriums.

I don’t want to say much more, I think in this case the comedian’s opinion of gender speaks for itself.

See Eddie's Cake or Death skit here