Philip Smartzis

LABEL: Room 40

Philip Samartzis is a sound artist and academic based in Melbourne with a particular interest in field recording, musique concrete and surround sound spatialisation.

He has exhibited nationally and internationally including;  Dodg'em (2006), Grosser Wasserspeicher, Berlin; Unheard Spaces (2004), Candiani Cultural Centre, Mestre; and Transparency (2001), Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art, Paris.

As an independent curator he has organized five Immersion festivals focusing on the theory and practice of sound spatialisation, as well as  Variable Resistance a series of international sound art presentations for the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (2001/2). Samartzis has also curated an overview of Australian sound culture titled Variable Resistance: Ten hours of sound from Australia for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2002) and the Podewil Centre for Contemporary Art in Berlin (2003). As a solo artist he has performed widely in Australia, Asia, South Africa, Europe, Russia and the United States including presentations at the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, The DOM, Moscow, and the Mori Arts Centre, Tokyo.

Samartzis has published five solo compact discs,  Residue (1998),  Windmills Bordered By Nothingness (1999),  Mort aux Vaches (2003),  Soft and Loud (2004) &  Unheard Spaces (2006), and has performed and recorded with leading international improvisers and musicians including Sachiko M, Seiichi Yamamoto, Gunter Müller, Voice Crack, Keiji Haino, KK Null, Reinhold Friedl, Michael Vorfeld, Eric La Casa and Jean-Luc Guionnet.

Samartzis uses field recordings of natural and constructed environments as his primary material to render densities of space and discrete zones of aural experience, arranged and mixed to reflect the acoustic and spatial complexities of everyday sound fields.

More at http://www.room40.org