Abstract
This paper centers the voice as a mediated technology—a living system through which feminist and ecological philosophies are sonically enacted. In 2021, British-American artist Anohni collaborated with avant-garde pioneer Yoko Ono to re-record Ono’s 1985 song “I Love You Earth,” transforming a mid-1980s New Wave composition into a contemporary invocation of planetary care. Originally featured on Ono’s Starpeace—conceived as an ecofeminist counterpoint to Reagan’s “Star Wars” initiative—“I Love You Earth” reflects the ethos of 1980s Japanese ecofeminism, a matricentric movement grounded in dualistic cosmologies of interdependence derived from Buddhist and Shintō thought. Distinct from Western binaristic epistemologies, this worldview conceives difference as relational and cyclical rather than oppositional—an orientation long misread by white feminist frameworks as essentialist. Anohni’s reimagining brings this cosmology into dialogue with trans-ecofeminism, which redefines our relationship to the environment through non-binary, intersectional, and relational ethics of care. The duet’s unadorned piano-and-voice texture intertwines Anohni’s haunting vibrato with Ono’s strident, time-worn, and emotionally charged voice. Both artists—renowned for their avant-garde vocal practices—use the voice as a site of mediation between the human and planetary, material and affective, personal and collective. This study leads through a close listening and viewing of the song and its accompanying video, experiencing this ecology of voice in real time. Together, Ono and Anohni model a trans-ecofeminist sound world that imagines expansive, relational futures grounded in care and interdependence.
Presenters
Shelina BrownAssistant Professor, Composition, Musicology, and Theory, University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music, Ohio, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Voice, Gender, Transfeminism, Ecomusicology
