Name: Anthea Caddy
Occupation: Cellist, composer, improviser, performer, sound artist
Nationality: Australian
Current event: Anthea Caddy will present an installation at THE SOUND OF DISTANCE / New conceptions of music, space and architecture, three days of concerts, sound installations and talks to be held October 21st – 24th 2021 at HKW, Berlin. In Caddy's installation Long Throw HKW "two parabolic speakers built specifically for the purpose throw sound at each other. The audience is physically confronted with a completely different organism: a physical, energetic sound body in the truest sense of the word."

Over the years, Anthea has performed and worked with a wide range of musicians, including Thembi Soddell, Magda Mayas, Robin Hayward, Marta Zapparoli, and Anthony Pateras.

[Read our Thembi Soddell interview]
[Read our Magda Mayas interview]
[Read our Robin Hayward interview]
[Read our Anthony Pateras interview]
[Read our Marta Zapparoli interview]

Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I have a need to experience the spatial; be it physical, material elements in a room, or lighting and sound, the more energy based version.

Maybe it is a slight form of obsessive compulsive disorder that I have had since I was very young, I have always felt the presence and been fascinated by ‘space’ and environment.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

I spend a significant amount of time researching and ruminating projects, often out of a hypothesis. For example ‘how could I do this’? ‘what would happen if I put this and this together?’.

This could be years in the making, and for me, it is always processed based; I think the process of artistic testing and research is as is important or sometimes more than the actual outcome.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?  

No, I think I am constantly on the make

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

A small hypothesis …

Once you've started, how does the work gradually emerge?

By research and testing and research and testing.

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

I often stick quite stubbornly to my idea.

Any other findings that I have, I keep for expanding into other works and artistic research

There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally?

I can’t.

Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?

A work will finish when it’s ready. I find they just have a natural end.

Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

My works keep evolving, I design them for that.

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

For me artworks are not finite.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

I think it is all the same. I can focus my energy, and often do, on things that could be considered mundane.

For me, everything has an interesting aspect to it.