During her Vivid Lab residency, Hannah Sawtell developed the project Useful Tools an innovative collective project that celebrates women, technology and sonics in the West Midlands.  

Useful Tools is a project that is mindful of collective & common ownership of the means of production, skill sharing and also access. The project will be developed with a group of women. This is to build resilience in producing electronic music, sound and holding space. My intention is to produce an interface for a programme with no hidden backend; opening up electronic production, so that those who use the programme can make sound and rhythm anywhere and learn hands-on. Hannah Sawtell 2023. 

Building on Sawtell’s interests in technology, Useful Tools emerged as an electronic sound project. Hannah worked with interdisciplinary artist and researcher Lizzie Wilson to create the free to use web-based synthesiser usefultools_moz a resource that could be freely shared and accessed. Hannah then programmed four workshops in partnership with Vivid Projects that explored improvising and collaborating with sound from April – June 2023. The sound workshops hosted by Hannah welcomed Old Bort, Laura Fox, Khush Kali, Indira Lakshmi, Sam Owen, Heather Reid, Davinia-Ann Robinson, Natalie Roe, Emily Scarrott & Emily Warner 

These workshops culminated in a live performance at Centrala on the 23 June 2023 by Hannah with Old Bort, Laura Fox, Indira Lakshmi, Sam Owen, Natalie Roe, Emily Scarrott & Emily Warner. The live stream of the two-hour performance is available to view here . 

Useful Tools was also made available for public use at Vivid Projects as part of Digbeth First Friday on July 7th 2023, inviting audiences to explore how they can make sound together by using usefultools_moz.  

Biographies:  

Hannah Sawtell is an artist working with sound, video, collectively built app development, installation, performance, radio and sculpture. She lives and works in London, although her background is in the electronic music scene in London and Detroit; she co-ran the label Planet E. From her life as a DJ and organiser, she started to work as a performer and artist. Sawtell’s multi-disciplinary practice is concerned with our globally connected society, and aims to provoke debate around the technology of access, labour, capital and surplus, desire and excess. Her work exploits the processes and materials accessible in the current culture of connectivity.  

Lizzie Wilson is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher, currently lecturing at The Creative Computing Institute at UAL. Her research interests include live computer music, musical pattern, epistemologies of artificial intelligence, techgnosis and human-machine co-collaboration. I have also performed live computer music as digital selves around the UK and internationally. Some recent works include commissions on Art and AI exploring ritual and collective intelligence; a recent feature in Fact Magazine’s Artist DIY series, musical releases on the Cherche Encore and i.u labels, and hosting feminist hackathons.