Lewis Sykes

www.monomatic.net www.augmentedtonoscope.net

The Whitney System, Whitney Evolved, Kinetica Art Fair 12, P3 Ambika, London, UK

The Modular Music Box (as Monomatic), Kinetica Art Fair 11, P3 Ambika, London, UK

PEAL: A Virtual Campanile (as Monomatic), Kinetica Art Fair 10, P3 Ambika, London, UK

Artist Statement Despite a background in live music and audiovisual performance my current collaborative art practice has a focus on sound and interaction - creating large-scale audiovisual installations and physical pieces that investigate rich and sonorous musical traditions. Recent works include Whitney Evolved - a series of real-time, code-based audiovisual works inspired by, interpreting and extending John Whitney Sr.s animated films; the Modular Music Box - several interconnected, plug-and-play devices that collectively reproduce the functionality of the familiar 19th century clockwork musical instrument; and PEAL: A Virtual Campanile - an interactive sound installation that models the layout and operation of a traditional English church bell tower (commissioned by Sound & Music for the Expo Leeds 09 Festival). This preoccupation with making virtual systems and physical, technological instruments that explore underlying sonic patterns persists in my PhD Practice as Research study into the aesthetics of sound and vibration - specifically the geometrical forms of Cymatics (Greek: !"#$ wave) - a term coined by Dr Hans Jenny when he studied this subset of modal wave phenomena in the 1960-70s using a device of his own design - the %tonoscope&. Im designing, fabricating and crafting a contemporary version of Jennys sound visualisation tool - a sonically and visually responsive hybrid analogue/digital instrument that will produce dynamic Visual Music - the Augmented Tonoscope. I then plan to play, record and interact with it to produce a series of artistic works for live performance, screening and installation. In doing this Im attempting to explore a real-time relationship between sound and image which is direct and elementary - analogs of each other in aural and visual form. Im also trying to find an amalgam of image and sound that engages the viewer in a subtlety shifted way - a synchronisation between the senses of sight and hearing that results in a co-sensing of a co-expressiveness, where the mind is not doing two separate things, its doing the same thing in two ways.

Biography Lewis Sykes is an artist, musician, interaction designer and digital media producer and curator currently based in Manchester, UK. A veteran bass player of the underground dub-dance scene of the 90s he performed and recorded with acts such as Emperor Sly, Original Hi-Fi and Radical Dance Faction and was a partner in the underground dance label Zip Dog Records. He honed his interests in mixed media through an MA in Hypermedia Studies at the University of Westminster in 2000 and continued to refine his fusion of music, visualisation and technology through a series of creative collaborations most notably as musician and performer with the award winning audiovisual collective The Sancho Plan (2005-2008) and currently as one half of Monomatic - a collaboration, experimental playground and halfway house alongside the work of composer, performer, software architect, programmer and sound designer Nick Rothwell a.k.a Cassiel. Lewis is Director of Cybersonica an annual celebration of music, sound art and technology (now in its ninth year) and between 2002-2007 was Coordinator of the independent digital arts agency

Cybersalon, founding Artists in Residence at the Science Museums Dana Centre. Lewis is in the second year of a Practice as Research PhD at MIRIAD, Manchester Metropolitan University exploring the aesthetics of sound and vibration.

Recent Exhibitions ! February 2012 - The Whitney System for Whitney Evolved (group screening), Kinetica Art Fair 12, P3 Ambika, London, UK July 2011 - Modular Music Box, EVA 11, London, BCS, London, UK July 2011 PPR group exhibition, RIBA Hub/CUBE Gallery, Manchester, UK June 2011 - Modular Music Box, Beam Festival, Brunel University, Middlesex, UK May 2011 - Modular Music Box, Netaudio London, Roundhouse, London, UK March 201 - Modular Music Box, Maker Faire, Centre for Life and Discovery Museum, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK February 2011 - Modular Music Box, Kinetica Art Fair 11, P3 Ambika, London, UK October 2010 - Modular Music Box, Analogue Is The New Digital @ AND Festival, Madlab, Manchester, UK February 2010 PEAL, Kinetica Art Fair 10, P3 Ambika, London, UK