Nathan Wolek
Nathan Wolek is an audio artist and researcher whose work encompasses advanced signal processing techniques, multimedia performance, and electronic music history. He is currently Associate Professor of Digital Arts and Director of the Digital Arts Program at Stetson University in DeLand, FL.
His music features gradually changing textures, quivering pulses and environmental recordings of personal significance. Since 2006, Wolek has performed as a laptop instrumentalist at the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Art (Minneapolis, MN), Florida Electroacoustic Music Festival (Gainesville, FL), the International Symposium of Electronic Art (San Jose, CA), Conflux Festival (Brooklyn, NY), the International Computer Music Conference (New Orleans, LA), NWEAMO (San Diego, CA), Festival Music Nova (Sao Paulo, Brazil) and IUPUI Intermedia Festival (Indianapolis, IN).
He is the music director of the new media collective MPG: mobile performance group, which was founded by video artist Matt Roberts. The group is dedicated to the ideal of presenting audiovisual art outside of traditional venues. They engage the public using laptops, video projection, camcorders, mp3 recorders, wireless routers, mobile phones and other technologies.
Wolek has presented research on a variety of topics at the ICMC, SEAMUS, CMS, SMPC and ATMI conferences. In January 2010, he presented on the laptop's evolving role as a musical instrument to the Florida Music Educators Association (FMEA) Clinic-Conference in Tampa, FL. In April 2010, he presented a paper on coordinating collective improvisation via networked laptops to the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States (SEAMUS) National Conference in St. Cloud, MN.
His software development includes VST plugins and Max/MSP externals that enable a variety of signal processing techniques. In 2005, Cycling'74 released Hipno, a collection of over 40 plugins that Wolek co-developed with Electrotap. Keyboard magazine called Hipno "just the antidote to sonic boredom that you need". He is well known as the author of the Granular Toolkit, a collection of Max/MSP externals that is used by artists and researchers around the world. He is currently a contributor to Jamoma, an open-source platform for interactive performance systems.
Nathan Wolek completed his Ph.D. in Music Technology at Northwestern University, and has studied with Gary Kendall, Amnon Wolman, and Virgil Moorefield. He has taught previously at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Columbia College Chicago and Northwestern University.