Damian Stewart

Damian Stewart is interesting in creating senses of space that transcend the immediate physical environment of the viewer. His 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.

Using custom electronics and sensors combined with computers, Damian build installations using light and sound. Drawing on ideas of performance, Damian pursues the creation of beautiful work that engages with the audience at an intuitive level and invites a deep sense of freedom and of play. In building interactive pieces he is 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 he releases his grip as an artist on the specifics of audience experiences of his work.

Drawing on ten years of classical training and an additional five years of personal musical development, Damian composes and performs 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.

Damian works closely with other artists to develop custom software, usually for interactive pieces. An expert C/C++ programmer with professional experience both in the Culture/Heritage sector, he is developing computer-vision based interactive installations for museums, and game titles for the Sony PlayStation2. Being an artist, he prefers to work in collaborative arrangements, where he can become engaged in the conceptual development of the piece.

http://frey.co.nz/

Damian Stewart demonstrated the project Artvertiser in Test_Lab: Tools for Propaganda on March 11, 2010. Together with Julian Oliver, Damian will lead the Artvertiser Walks, in the context of the Beeldfestival Rotterdam on October 29 and 30, 2010.