Philip Samartzis

About

Philip Samartzis (born 1963, Melbourne) is a sound artist, composer and associate professor in Sculpture, Sound and Spatial Practice and teaches Sound Cultures in the Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) program at RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology). Philip Samartzis uses field recordings of natural and constructed environments as his primary material to render densities of space and discrete zones of aural experience, which are arranged and mixed to reflect the acoustic and spatial complexities of everyday sound fields. He draws on a range of practices ranging from acoustic ecology and bioacoustics to musique concrète and sound art to arrive at compositions that highlight the pervasive nature of sound and the myriad ways in which it informs and influences our daily experiences. To emphasize this Philip designs his compositions for multi-channel surround sound systems that afford immersive and tactile listening experiences to demonstrate the transformational qualities inherent in sounds familiar and strange.