Historically, women in sound and music have faced systemic barriers to accessing the high-tech tools often associated with spatial sound. In spite of these limitations, many women composers have long been thinking spatially, developing expansive imaginations that explore the connections between sound, space, and the listener. Their works reveal that spatial sound is both a conceptual and a technical exercise. Artists such as Pauline Oliveros, Éliane Radigue, Else Marie Pade, and Linda Perhacs offer valuable insights into how spatial sound can go beyond a technical exercise and become a powerful tool for reimagining space.
The history of spatial sound has traditionally been dominated by technological advancements, formats, and a historical canon centered on male figures and large-scale multimedia works. While these projects are significant in their own right, they do not define the full scope of spatial sound. The voices and technologies that were once available only to a privileged few should not be the sole lens through which we view spatial sound history or imagine its future. In this chapter, we highlight practices that did not necessarily have the means to unfold spatial concepts in large-scale speaker systems but focused on conceptual, imagined, and perceptual dimensions of sound and space.
Pauline Oliveros’s approach to spatial sound challenges us to experience spatiality as an internal practice, one that involves an embodied awareness of sound beyond physical boundaries. Her concept of deep listening invites us to perceive space not as something fixed but as fluid and imagined. This approach to spatial sound moves away from traditional mappings of space and, instead, emphasizes the internal and subjective experiences of listening.
Éliane Radigue’s Adnos I–III, composed in the 1970s for stereo tape, was not designed as spatial music in the traditional sense. However, Radigue’s careful manipulation of microtonal shifts, harmonic resonances, and sustained drones creates a conceptual spatiality in which the listener perceives depth, movement, and internal motion. In her later performances and installations, Adnos spatialized in multichannel settings, amplifying these internal effects by projecting them into physical space, all while maintaining her minimalist approach to sound and perception. In 1973, Tom Johnson wrote in The Village Voice about hearing Éliane Radigue’s electroacoustic work Ψ 847 at its New York premiere at The Kitchen:
Éliane Radigue’s score for 7th Birth, 1971, one of the first compositions for the ARP 2500. Photo: Fondation A.R.M.A.N. © Éliane Radigue.
"Perhaps the most interesting thing about “Psi 84” is the way its motifs seem to come from different places. They were all produced by the same loudspeakers, and many of them seemed to come directly out of the loudspeakers. But some of the sounds seem to ooze out of the side wall, and others seem to emanate from specific points near the ceiling. I am told that this is actually true with any kind of music, and that the acoustical properties of a room will always affect different pitches in different ways." Source
Else Marie Pade, whose first spatial compositions emerged later in her life, exemplifies how many women conceptualized spatial sound before gaining access to the technology needed to realize their ideas. Syv cirkler (1958), composed with Sven Drehn-Knudsen, is a seminal electronic work inspired by Pade’s experience at the 1958 World’s Fair in Brussels, particularly the Vortex show, an immersive spatial installation. The piece, originally created in mono, explores seven tones with pulsating circular rhythms, emphasizing spatial movement. In the 1990s, Syv cirkler was spatialized for multichannel playback by Henning Lohner, fully realizing Pade’s original vision of sound moving through space and enhancing its immersive, hypnotic quality. Pade’s compositions show that spatial thinking in sound does not always require access to high-tech tools; it begins with conceptualizing the relationships of sound to space and perception.
Excerpt from Else Marie's score for Circles of Sevenths
Linda Perhacs is primarily known for her folk and psychedelic music. In her 1970 album Parallelograms, she demonstrates a spatial approach to sound outside the institutionalized world of spatial sound research and without access to spatial sound equipment. Perhacs calls Parallelograms “a three-dimensional sound sculpture,” challenging the boundaries of traditional songwriting. Her layered vocals and fingerpicked guitar create a soft, immersive texture, later disrupted by a surreal psychedelic interlude of ambient noise and spiraling harmonies. The original verse quietly returns, and the track ends on an unresolved chord, suggesting that the song could loop endlessly or blend into others, taking a shape-shifting form as much as a composition. In the liner notes of the album, you find the visual score of Parallelograms with the following description: “Sound Sculpture in movement. 3-dimensional shapes in color and sound like an air painting, with sounds moving from speaker to speaker to form shapes and all musical notes in color to match the frequency of the musical notes.” She also elaborates on the lack of equipment in the liner notes: “Leonard and I were both experimenting with multi-dimensional sounds, long before the equipment was created to make that type of music easily. All that we had at the time was a voice modulator.”
Visual Score for Linda Perhacs song “Parallelograms” as she imagined it in 3-D
These artists’ works show that spatial thinking does not require advanced technology; it can be found in the conceptual, perceptual, and intuitive ways of engaging with sound. Their approaches challenge us to reconsider what spatial sound can be and who gets to define its boundaries. As we look to the future, we must continue to expand our understanding of spatial sound, recognizing its capacity to transcend technology and embrace the imaginative and perceptual dimensions that lie at its core.
As different as they might be, Oliveros’, Radigue’s, Pade’s, and Perhacs’ works are connected by a spatial sensibility grounded in imagination, perception, and concept. We find inspiration in these practices because they open up what can feel inaccessible about spatial sound. It inspires us to search for those spatial ideas beyond the technical execution that could potentially be realized in many spatial resolutions. Furthermore, there is a link between the four artists’ creative approaches to mapping those ideas, inspiring our work with notating our own spatial strategies.