Interview with curator Natalia Piñuel

Since 2015, Natalia Piñuel has curated SHE MAKES NOISE one of the most groundbreaking festivals in the field of electronic music in Spain, the first festival devoted to female, trans and gender dissident music.

Could you tell us why and how did you start the festival? Was there an specific moment of realisation that the scene needs more presence of non-male musicians? How has it been to collaborate with a big institution as La Casa Encendida?

Hello and thank you for this meeting. The festival starts in 2015 but two years before I started to work on the online project with the same title on the tumblr. platform, researching and writing about women in electronic music. All this interest is because there have always been women in electronic & experimental music, since the XIX century and with the emergence of visual music linked to the invention of photography and cinema, but they were not visible. Creating a new genealogy for the history of electronic music is also a major theme of all my work.

The history of electronic music is inextricably linked to machines and technology, and none of these subjects have been socially good for women, so we've been relegated. Everything is linked to patriarchal oppression.

For me it was incredible that one of the most important cultural institutions in the country supported the project from the beginning, with the production of the event, understanding an audiovisual programme with a gender and non-binary perspective, giving curatorial freedom and working together to move forward, also thanks to very good communication, an annual festival, emerging and always accepting the risk proposed in the content. Not having the pressure of selling tickets, of finding different venues or private sponsors is also an advantage. There was an urgency to do something like this in Spain, because up until that point the line-ups of electronic festivals were all male.

La Casa Encendida already had other events dedicated to electronic music in their programmes, but not a multidisciplinary festival like She Makes Noise.

The festival has a clear norm-critical and decolonial perspective. When looking at the artists you invite to the festival, one sees a lot of care and diversity, both in terms of aesthetics but also in terms of origin, race and gender (Slim Soledad, Lotic.. just to mention some). It feels that most of the electronic music festivals in Europe are still widely dominated by white people, but hopefully things are changing now. Could you tell us about your curatorial practice?

As a curator, I have a great responsibility to share works, artists, messages, etc. and curators also have the power to share content with people, so remember the classic feminist slogan 'the personal is political', so as a feminist woman I don't understand my life and work without a decolonial and inclusive perspective.

As the editions of SHE went on, I realised that we were making some patriarchal mistakes and that we needed to not only show the work of women in electronic music, but also go beyond the European, white North American perspective, techno or house, and work with other latitudes, bringing in artists from Latin America, Africa and Asia, as well as other sounds. There is no one way to tell the story of electronic music. The same goes for the film programme we are proposing, directed by women.

Quoting one of your texts: A desire to move towards a cyborg and non-gender society, but on the way there, to continue working with a gender perspective, expanding it, diversifying and bringing together trans identities under that gender-non-gender. How serves sound as a tool for freeing the bodies?

There is something revolutionary to see a woman on stage making electronic music (for this tradition men/machine that I explained before) Practice of electronic music is an exercise lonely and cheaper and susteintable than to make a pop band. The artist has more chance to experiment and less pressure from the industry. So I think this kind of sound & music has a free and healthy component for them. The physical aspect is less important than in other music, the social media pressure and fans... and the artist in electronic music can build and invent new characters all the time. In some disciplines, like noise or industrial music, the freedom is direct for them. Electronic music has a very strong health component.

One very special thing of SHE MAKES NOISE is its multidisciplinary prism: film streamings, family concerts and club nights besides the concerts. From the outside it feels very ambitious, how do you deal with such an extended event and how does the festival want to meet the audience?

I'm not alone. I'm the coordinator of the festival and the programme of music and activities (workshops and children's electronic programme - En Familia). The staff of La Casa Encendida is with me in deciding the line-up, logistics and production. Enrique Piñuel is the curator of the film programme and Las Lindas Pobres Studio, works with the graphic design, assets and also with the afterparty. There are 4 days of festival and yes it's hard! but awesome for the diversity of the audience and the relationship with the artists (for most of them it's their first time in Madrid, even in Spain). It comes a lot of young and queer people, but families and public older with a lot of sensibility to discover new names at the electronic culture come to the festival. The events are sold out and the atmosphere is great. I talked before about the responsibility of the curators and I think that the museums, cultural and artistic institutions also have a social responsibility with sharing other kind of thoughts diferents than the comercials, private promoters, online platforms etc. Workshops and electronic programmes for children for example are very importand for creating a new community and for the educational value.

I'm working on the festival, looking for a curatorial line for each edition, booking artists, booking flights and hotels etc all year round. It's a lot but I enjoy it because when it all happens in October and those 4 days are real and you feel the people in the venue is awesome! and yes, all the effort works.

How do you think SHE MAKES NOISE influence the Madrid music scene? Are there more festivals or collectives devoted to experimental or electronic music? is there a lot of institutional support?

Madrid is not a reference city for electronic music, in Spain the city is Barcelona and have more international proyection. This is one of the reasons for making She Makes Noise, because most of the artists (about 70-80 artists this year) are performing their first time in Madrid, with our "little festival" have found their place in Madrid. La Casa Encendida is the place to enjoy the best experimental electronic meeting throughout the year, with other programmes such as "Electronica en abril" and "La Terraza suena" in the summer. For the last 5-7 years various clubs and young and queer collective DIY or better DIT have been working for change in the electronic scene in the city, but it's difficult because of the low budgets and little sensibility about contemporary culture & arts (in general) from the central administration and most of the institutions. It's too tiring if you don't have support. I'd like to mention Lagrima Collective, Fiesta x Fiesta (Jaleo Real), El Puñal Dorado, Culpa, Radio Relativa... as examples of how to create a real electronic community in Madrid.

In our collective, Konstmusiksystrar, we say that we hope to not be needed in the near future, but it seems that an equal horizon is still far away. How do you think the music scene in Madrid and Spain has changed in the last 10 years? How do you see the present and the future?

We have taken steps towards equality, but there is still a long way to go. Society has evolved, especially in the new generations, but there is a lack of laws and institutional support to make things less precarious in the electronic field. In Madrid, where there is no tradition, electronic music is also stigmatised. I always try to look at things in a positive way.

I guess many things have happened in 10 years, could you share one special concert or edition of SHE MAKES NOISE?

This is a very difficult question for me, but yes! There is always a moment when you connect specifically with the space, the environment, the artist... and you feel that all the hours and work are worth it. 2019, with Electric Indigo, the queen of techno music and a reference for me with her project female:pressure. 2017 was also a special edition for me, sharing the music of three racialised women on stage. Very powerful live shows; Afrofuturism, traditions and peripheral music. I talked to Nídia, Nkisi and Deena Abdelwahed about the night. The value of the real noise and dark sounds with Dis Fig and Sarahsson's proposals and the three performances with the Spanish producer Uge Pañeda aka Okkre, who accompanied them in their personal and professional evolution, uff very sensitive and emotional for me. I always cry during the festival (hahahaha). I remember very well the COVID edition, 2020, with all the restrictions and problems, but we did it!

In 2014 you published “Ellas Hacen Ruido/Panorama España” in the publishing house Las Lindas Pobres and “Ellas Hacen Ruido: Panorama Internacional” in 2020, could you tell us about these books?  I heard you are also doing a PhD at the moment, could you tell us a little bit about it?

In 2014 I make a zine (it's not a book), my first publication about these topics, thanks to the editorial of Las Lindas Pobres. It's a story about Spanish women in electronic and experimental music and in 2020 I win an institutional support with MAV Association to make the book Ellas hacen Ruido- Panorama International- the same but in all the world. There are no other publications dedicated to this in Spain and in Spanish, so I'll try to make a new book in the future, mixing Spanish and international women and non-binary artists and in Spanish and English and Yes! I returned to the university two years ago to do my doctorate and I am channeling part of my curatorial activity from the academy.

Besides curating SHE MAKES NOISE and many other art events, you have a podcast called DERIVAS in La Casa Encendida Radio, can you tell us a little bit about it?

It's in Spanish, but it's an honour to share with you- https://radio.lacasaencendida.es/programas/derivas/ I have 4 years with this project, love the radio and the freedom to talk about politics, women, no gender people... Podcast is about cinema, performance, visual arts, comics and architecture/city, crossed by electronic music in all its diversity. A space where all these disciplines come together with guests. A programme, a different episode and a story where we want to involve the listener under the common thread of electronic experimentation.

Living in this pre-apocalyptic, post-post human, trash capitalist, instagramable world, what advices would you give to a young artist/curator?

OMG! The world is terrible right now, but artists like you and curators and people in art, music and film have the power to heal people and think about all this situation and make other proposals. Yes, we can! Take risks, compromise with your ideas, work a lot and surround yourself with good people.

Thank you so much for your words, and to finish, can you tell us what are you listening (hopefully not in the evil Spotify) these days?

(Hahahaha. Bandcamp or Souncloud is better) Obviously I'm listening to the artists on this year's line-up. Discover bela music, it's a non binary artist from South Korea. Gazelle Twin, 33EMYBW (another artist from the Chinese record label - SVBKVLT) and always the Spanish industrial band - Esplendor Geométrico and other experimental Spanish artists like Marina Herlop, María Arnal and the mix tapes, always a surprise, edited by Agnès Pe.

Text and interview by Hara Alonso.