Dr. Jessica Argo plays the Moog Theremini, a gesture-controlled synthesiser. This is a mutation of the monophonic theremin invented in 1920 (a by-product of Leon Theremin’s attempts to build a device to detect changes in air density, a poison gas alarm), an electronic instrument that the player does not touch; rather its antennas generate an electromagnetic field for the player to dance through.
The theremin was first popularised in concert halls by injured violinist Clara Rockmore (who turned to this instrument for its more inclusive affordances), recently techno-feminised by Dorit Chrysler in her site-specific surrealist film at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (she also devised an installation where the limbs of Alexander Calder’s mobiles performed her Moog Theremini), and again returned to concert halls by Carolina Eyck.
The theremin has a history of ethereal, magic (witchiness), femininity, balletic, corporeal gestures (the Moog Theremini instructions guide the player to move their hands as slightly as a butterfly’s wings!) which can be subverted by punk performers like Skin from Skunk Anansie, who at Glastonbury 2022 broke the rule of no touching, when she licked the antenna of a premium Moog Etherwave, before smashing it on the ground.
Dr Jessica Evelyn Argo, Programme Leader of BDes Sound for Moving Image at GSA, composes for ensembles and creates experimental film and sound art. Her research spans improvisation, cello/theremin, queer/femme voice and community world-building as artistic director of GIO Global, an online improvisation orchestra.
Dr. Jessica Argo is Programme Leader for BDes Sound for Moving Image at Glasgow School of Art, a composer for improvising ensembles and an experimental filmmaker/sound artist, drawn to music for community world-building - improvisation to bridge international distance and sustain intergenerational learning; improvising for queer affirmation; deep listening, emotional expression, mood regulation and liberation from patriarchal, ableist and economic oppression. Argo uses embodied synthesis (Moog Theremini, contact microphones, voice) to conjure alien sound, extended from her physical body or other acoustic bodies (cello). She has conducted neuroscience research, films in white cube galleries, dance clubs and hybrid room-and-ZOOM orchestra theatre performance
For UNESCO Week of Sound, audio visual documentation and reflective insights are shared from large ensemble compositions where heightened expressive physicality is encouraged from musicians for Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and our international collaborators such as:
- the score and photomontage documentation for the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra Global XVII Hybrid Piece, called "When is a Mirror not a Mirror?" for a ROOM orchestra and a ZOOM orchestra https://youtu.be/3y-pPHwpQkc?si=JqKU1nfRAl4f-Hqc . It was sought to draw a dramatic attention to the uncanny distancing of digital bodies versus physical bodies (both the people and their sounds) - the work centred bold dancerly performances from ZOOM performers as if they were silent cinema stars!
- a suite of films from the year of GIOGlobal ZOOM recordings - these were premiered in the Centre for Contemporary Art Cinema, with a virtual watch party https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQw3tLmFowTT3xhgf_2dRaVVCUDPqqP9R&si=3TfZG5fjXCYqvDhh As well as our familiar faces, we featured returning guests, Alipio C Neto, Douglas R Ewart , Maggie Nicols, Rachel Weiss, Vinny Golia. Expansive original commissions were premiered from Instant Places (Ian Birse and Laura Kavanaugh), Melbourne's Rob Burke, Clare Hall, Michael Kellett, Paul Williamson, Chicago Association for Advancement of Creative Musicians Renee Baker, and Minori Seki with the Okayama creative community: works include Distributed Conduction, arresting animated graphic scores, blurring of the edges of the zoom boxes, bleeding the digital space into projected site specific installations, and dance.
- an article “Resonant Networks:Feminist Improvisation across Sites, Identities and Technologies” published in Improfil Journal: Theory and Practice of Improvised Music, from thering für gruppenimprovisation Musikalische Improvisation in Theorie und Praxis
The article was written, pondered and collated across multiple geographies – from India to Scotland and England – and from diverse experiences of migration, travel and belonging. A piece, titled Unbound, inspired by the River Yamuna was created by Surbhi Mittal and performed by Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) and International Contemporary Ensemble at GlOfest XVI in November 2024, CCA Glasgow, and in Delhi with Synth Ensemble, February 2025. We outline the processes of collaboration which informed Surbhi’s creation of Unbound.
By sharing a detailed account of how this piece was created and performed (I played the theremin and extended vocal transformations), we offer practice-based insight into the intersecting fields of improvisation, gender studies and socio-technologies.
