Shirin Neshat
ARTIST (1957 - present)
Shirin Neshat's earliest works of photographs
explore the notions of femininity in relation to
Islamic fundamentalism and militancy in her
home country, with works such as Women of
Allah (1993-97). Her video installations
however convey oppositions based on gender
and society, the individual and the group,
which can hint at the restrictive nature of
Islamic laws in relation to women, but the
videos are abstract in how they are portrayed
within the video media allowing them to be
more open to a universal meaning with
multiple readings. Neshat continues to
challenge these central themes of gender,
religion, madness and violence within the
subjects of her creative practice.
Daphne Oram
MECHANICAL ENGINEER (1925 - 2003)
Daphne Oram was a pioneering electronic
composer. She was one of the first
British composers to produce
electronic sound, and was an innovator of
musique concrete, which utilises recorded
sound as raw material, in the
UK. Oram became a central figure in the
evolution of electronic music and was the
creator of the Oramics technique for creating
electronic sounds using drawn sound. In
addition to being a musical innovator, she was
the first woman to independently direct and
set up a personal electronic music studio and
design and construct an electronic
musical instrument. She created electronic
soundtracks for television (Dr Who) and film.
Her work is held in the special collections
archive at Goldsmiths, University of London.
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