Fem Synth Lab: Musicians as Workers with Josephine Shetty
Sunday January 17, 2021 // 11:00am–1:00pm
Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, there are many examples of music workers building worker power. However, exclusionary union models, individualism, increasing inequality, and technological changes in the music industry have also hindered music workers from massively collectivizing or uniting in solidarity with the rest of the working class. This workshop questions what it means to position musicians as workers and how we can learn from an existing lineage of musicians organizing to build stronger movements of workers today.
This event prioritizes all marginalized genders, including but not limited to trans women, cis women, trans men, non-binary, intersex, gender nonconforming, two-spirit and questioning folx. We ask that our cis male allies and friends respectfully do not sign up, as we recognize that electronic music is overwhelmingly dominated by cis men.
Josephine Shetty is a queer, South Indian and Irish American musician, audio engineer, music educator, and union organizer born and based in Los Angeles, CA. She is most often known for her pop music project Kohinoorgasm, for which she uses minimal dance beats and susurrate vocals to create hypnotic environments that invoke reflection and replenishment. More recently, Shetty pursued higher education in composition and audio engineering at California Institute of the Arts, became a founding member of the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers, and began her own series of affordable Music Production workshops, inspired by her work as a youth music educator. Shetty announces her live shows, workshops, and happenings on social media, and her music is streaming almost everywhere, with an emphasis on the boycott of Amazon/Amazon Music.