musician, composer, sonic artist, audio engineer, installation artist
Based in transient
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frey

Biography

Damian Stewart, aka Frey, is a musician, a sound, installation, and new media artist, and a skilled and talented multi-lingual software engineer. Originally from New Zealand, he is currently based in Europe. He is a member of New Interfaces for Performance (NIP).

Artist Statement

My artistic practice uses sound, sensors, open source software, DIY electronics and analogue and digital technology to create playful and magical experiences. I prefer to work collaboratively wherever possible. Drawing on a wide range of skills and experience including commercial game development for PlayStation 2, XBox, and PC, interactive pieces for the culture and heritage (museum) sector, electronics, and live improvised electroacoustic music performance, and combining these skills with a solid sense of sonic aesthetics and a desire to harness the aetherical forces behind electronics, software, and sound, I am driven to create works of art that take their cues from ideas of performance, and that profoundly involve the audience in the experience of the artwork.

Awards and Residencies

Artist in Residence: 'Home'
2-month residency with André Gonçalves.

International Artist Fellowship Residency 2007
3-month residency with the Modulate Collective, Birmingham, UK, fully funded by a £10,000 IAF grant from the Arts Council of England

Best Visual Arts, Wellington Fringe Festival 2007
for Sounds Like Light, Lights Like Sound, an interactive immersive installation

with the Ascension Band:
Best Music, Wellington Fringe Festival 2005
for Evolution, in which I played live laptop improv music

Education

Victoria University of Wellington, 2000-2002, 2005-2006
BSc in Computer Science
Personal research focused on social aspects of computing.
I also studied papers in interior architecture, drawing, art history, philosophy, and physics to second-year level

New Zealand School of Music, 2005-2006
Sonic Arts study at the Lilburn Electroacoustic Studios to third-year level

Selected Projects

For a full project listing please visit the projects page.

2008

2007

2006

  • 2006 - Bleep Workshops and Performances - organized and facilitated a series of three workshops and two performances for musicians working with electronics in Wellington, New Zealand. We covered improvising, circuit-bending, and techniques for �jamming� with computers. The aim of the series was to foster collaboration amongst like-minded local musicians
  • August-September 2006 - Collaborated with Daniel Agnihotri-Clark on Sisyphus, an art-bot built from a hacked remote control tank with a webcam and deliberately flawed computer vision capabilities
  • 5 April 2006 - Performed Reciprocity, a performance built entirely using feedback audio and video, with video artist Emil McAvoy at Interdigitate 06, Moving Image Centre, Auckland, NZ

2005

  • July-August 2005 - Composed and performed music for the Jo Randerson play Honeybear and the Reaper, as part of �Crack�, the first Victoria University of Wellington third year students� theatre season, Wellington, NZ
  • March 2005 - Performed at Catchpool Found Sound Project performance alongside Biosphere, Adam Concert Room, New Zealand School of Music, Wellington, NZ
  • February 2005 - Performed Evolution with the Ascension Band, winning the Best Music prize for Wellington Fringe Festival 2005, Newtown Community Centre, Wellington, NZ

2004

  • Founding member of the While You Were Sleeping audiovisual artists collective
  • Composed, produced, and self-released Loud and Quiet double album

Skillset
Sonic arts

  • Crafting sonic works: electronica, electroacoustic music, noise, interactive audio installations
  • Live audio performances: with MIDI controllers and hand-built PureData software instruments, I perform truly live improvised music

Programming
I write code with a strong open source ethic, making use of open source tools and libraries wherever possible and giving back to the community whenever I can.

  • More than 12 years programming experience, including several years professional programming on the PlayStation2 platform, and professional Computer Vision work using the OpenCV library, building public interfaces in the Culture and Heritage sector; see for example the Hand Tracker
  • Fields of experience: Computer Vision (expert), 2D/3D Graphics with OpenGL and GLSL/HLSL (intermediate/expert), low-level and systems development (expert), Object Oriented software engineering (expert)
  • Language proficiency: C/C++ (expert), PureData (expert), MIPS and 80x86 Assembler (intermediate), Embedded C (Arduino/Wiring) (intermediate), Java (intermediate), HTML/CSS (intermediate), Lua (expert), Perl/PHP (expert) + MySQL (intermediate), python (intermediate)
  • Able to learn any new languages as necessary with ease

Electronics

  • Experience developing systems with Arduino and Wiring-based development boards, including soldered stripboard development with self-designed circuits

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