PHILIP SAMARTZIS

Philip Samartzis (Melbourne, Australia) is coordinator and lecturer in Sound within the School of Art, RMIT where in 2004 he completed a doctorate into surround sound in installation art. Outcomes from his research have informed numerous exhibitions including; Dodg’em (2006), Grosser Wasserspeicher, Berlin; Unheard Spaces (2004), Candiani Cultural Centre, Mestre; Presence & Absence (2002), Statenlogement, Hoorn; and Transparency (2001), Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art, Paris. As an independent curator he has organized four 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, Japan, Russia, Europe and the United States including presentations at the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, The DOM, Moscow, Museum of Modern Art, Strasbourg and Mori Arts Centre, Tokyo He has published five solo compact discs, Residue (1998), Windmills Bordered By Nothingness (1999), Mort aux Vaches (2003), Soft and Loud (2004) & Unheard Spaces (2006). Samartzis has also performed and recorded with leading international improvisers and musicians including Sachiko M, Seiichi Yamamoto, Gunter Muller, Voice Crack, Keiji Haino, Oren Ambarchi, Rhinhold 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.