About Damian Stewart

email: damian [at] frey [dot] co [dot] nz
skype: damiansnz
current location: EU

I am an artist who works with sound, code, light, and electronics. In my work I am interested in creating senses of space that transcend the immediate physical environment of the viewer. My ideas come from a diverse background that includes musicianship as an improvising electroacoustic performer, time spent as a professional software programmer, and an education including elements of architecture and spatial design.

Installations

Using custom electronics and sensors combined with computers, I build installations using light and sound. Drawing on ideas of performance, with this line of work I am attempting to create something beautiful that engages with the audience at an intuitive level and invites a deep sense of freedom and of play. In building interactive pieces I am interested in blurring the lines between artist and audience, dissolving implicit hierarchies of artistic experience and elevating the audience to the level of artistic collaborator, even as I release my own grip as an artist on the specifics of their experience of my work.

→ Sounds Like Light, Lights Like Sound; → Wind

From the blog:

more from the blog…

Music

Drawing on ten years of classical training and an additional five years of personal musical development, I compose and perform using a MIDI controller keyboard and software instruments developed in PureData. On stage the laptop usually lives behind me, out of the way; my entire performance is built up live using just the MIDI controller, which frees me to move my body expressively, and in so doing, forge a strong bond between myself as a performer and my audience.

→ video: waves to waves to waves with Chris Sugrue, AVLab 1.0, Medialab Prado, Madrid, September-October 2008; → video: solo live performance, 18th December 2007, Eindhoven, NL; → video: live with Pedro Boavida @ Sonic Scope 2007, Lisbon, PT; → Into the Wandering Wandering; → some of my compositions.

From the blog:

more from the blog…

Code

I work closely with other artists to develop custom software, usually for interactive pieces. I am an expert C/C++ programmer with professional experience both in the Culture/Heritage sector developing computer-vision based interactive installations for museums, and in the computer games industry developing game titles for the Sony PlayStation2. But I am also an artist, and so I bring an artists’ sensitivity toward the construction of the software that I make. Because of this I prefer to work in collaborative arrangements, where I can become more engaged in the conceptual development of the piece.

I know C/C++, OpenFrameworks, Java/Processing, PureData, Arduino/Wiring, HTML/CSS, PHP/Perl, MySQL, Lua, OpenGL, GLSL/HLSL; I have experience with computer vision and advanced 3D graphics programming with OpenGL including GLSL shader development.

→ Hand Tracking System

From the blog:

more from the blog…

Biography

Download pdf.

Damian Stewart is a musician, programmer, and artist, originally from New Zealand and currently based in Europe. In his predominantly realtime performance-oriented work he aims to incite personal senses of the now, to find moments of pause, and to halt thought, even if just for an instant. Sound, repetition, and a fascination with process act as his raw material.

Damian has a diverse background that includes study in electroacoustic music, interior architecture, and computer science; various music performances including free-jazz orchestras, solo shows, and an electronic dub outfit; and professional software programming work on interactive museum installations and PlayStation2 games. He is a member of the New Interfaces for Performance (N.I.P.) and Polar Produce collectives, has performed internationally alongside artists including Biosphere and Deadbeat, collaborated on projects in New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, Austria, the UK, and the Netherlands, and has been artist-in-residence with the Modulate collective in the UK and at the Home residency with André Gonçalves in Portugal.

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

  • performance of aCablePlays with Chris Sugrue at HAIP festival, Ljubljana (SI), November 2008
  • waves2waves2waves in collaboration with Chris Sugrue, at AVLab 1.0, Medialab Prado, Madrid (ES), September-October 2008
  • artist-in-residence for RjDj, September-November 2008
  • participant, oflab@ars, Ars Electronica festival, Linz, September 2008
  • custom computer vision tracking software and lighting/hardware consultancy for Apparitions/Taking a Line for a Walk, a project by Kathy Hinde, April 2008
  • Pure Data patch development with Yolande Harris for her project Sun Run Sun, Amsterdam (NL) 22-24 January 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 80×86 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

Employment History

July 2007 – present: Freelance Interactive Artist/Musician/Software Developer

Travelling widely in Europe, I have been collaborating with artists on various projects, performing live music, and attending workshops as an assistant or a collaborator. A full list of these engagements is at http://www.frey.co.nz/projects.

April 2007 – June 2007: Resident Artist – Modulate Collective, Birmigham, UK

Part of the the Arts Council of England’s International Artists Fellowship programme, this residency was fully funded by a £10,000 grant from the Arts Council of England.

Jan 2007 – March 2007: Freelance Interactive Artist/Developer

Designed, developed and built electronics, embedded systems, and custom software for Sounds Like Light, Lights Like Sound, an interactive immersive installation which won the Best Visual Arts prize in the Wellington Fringe Festival 2007. The project is built using open source software and involves computer vision with OpenCV, live audio with PureData, and LED lighting with Arduino and Wiring.

June 2006 – October 2006: Organiser – Bleep Workshops and Gigs

Engaged local musicians in collaborative and novel music making ideas such as circuit bending.

March 2006 – February 2007: Lead Programmer, Interactive Designer – Lumen Digital Studio Ltd

Designed and developed systems for public interaction with culture/heritage installations, including a multi-hand computer vision based hand-tracking system, and realtime 2D and 3D software-generated graphics. Projects include work for Maori cultural centre Te Puia, New Zealand’s Ministry of Research, Science, and Technology, and Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand. Examples of this work can be found at http://www.frey.co.nz/projects/handtracker and http://www.frey.co.nz/projects/futurefarming.

2002-2004: Programmer, PlayStation2 Technical Lead – Sidhe Interactive

Responsible for creating and maintaining the PlayStation2 build of Sidhe’s game project Stacey Jones Rugby League. I also worked on AI routines, user interface development, low-level memory management, and artist and programmer support tools.

2001-2002: Computer Science teaching assistant – Victoria University of Wellington

Taught classes of first year students; performed helpdesk, assignment marking, and exam and test marking duties.

 

last updated Monday 13th April 2009