Chicks on Speed
Exhibition “Techno Worlds”
We don’t play guitars, Video 2003
The Chicks on Speed collective formulates their feminist-oriented approach to electronic music with the video “We Don’t Play Guitars”. The instrument is considered a symbol of rock music –and often a phallic one at that, as many have pointed out. With a manifesto-like title, Chicks On Speed eschew the masculine attribute of the electric guitar, instead opting for newer technologies to produce pop music that can rock just as hard. Inthe video, they also depict the debate among female musicians at the time about whether or not women should use guitars, featuring Peaches (Canadian musician Merrill Nisker) as the antagonist.
Chicks on Speed (COS) zu "Theremin Tapestry"
The aim of the artistic research underlying the “Theremin Tapestry” was to create a new musical instrument that integrated analogue and digital processes with slow craft techniques. The intent had two important threads: questioning conventional views of “craft” in terms of decorative and material discourses, and exploring how one might reinvent older technologies such as tapestry weaving. COS collaborated with weavers from the Australian Tapestry Workshop, who worked daily for 3 months to finish it.
Biography
Chicks on Speed area multinational collective founded by Alex Murray-Leslie and Melissa Logan. For a number of years, Kiki Moorse was also part of the group. Ever since meeting at the Academy of Arts in Munich in the 1990s, they’ve been dedicated not only to the visual and performing arts but also to music. With specially built instruments, costumes, objects, mind maps and sound installations, they continue to deconstruct established arrangements of roles and staging. Their feminist and participatory happenings consist of pop, readymades, performance and fashion. Musically, Chicks on Speed are located within the genre of danceable electropop.