Kenneth Newby


Kenneth Newby is a Canadian media artist, composer-performer, educator, interaction designer, and audio producer based in British Columbia. He is known for his innovative use of technology in the creation of music, media performances, and installations. He is a Research Associate at the Center for Culture and Technology at the University of British Columbia, and Director of the Flicker Art Collaboratory at Frog Hollow, Mayne Island.

Early life

Newby was born in Victoria, British Columbia.

Career

Newby joined the research faculty in media arts at Simon Fraser University, where he was a member of the Computational Poetics research group with Aleksandra Dulic and Martin Gotfrit. At the University of the Fraser Valley he was Associate Professor in Media Arts., where he studied creative forces in the field of computational art.
Newby created performances and exhibits which integrated new media diffusion techniques and augmented reality systems, and he developed generative systems for the composition and performance of music and visual art.
In the 1990s Newby released several solo albums, including Ecology of Souls in 1993. He also collaborated on recordings with the groups Trance Mission and Lights in a Fat City.
In the 2004 Newby collaborated with the group Gamelan Madu Sari on their album of Javanese music, New Nectar, and later contributed to their live performance installation, "Semar's Journey", in Vancouver.
Newby's recent work is focussed on long-term projects in generative art including the development of the Flicker Computer Assisted Composition system — a computer-aided system for the composition and performance of contemporary classical music; and Becoming World — a project in generative visual art in collaboration with Aleksandra Dulic.
Newby also worked as an interactivity consultant for Pixar Animation Studios, and as a sound artist and audio software developer at Electronic Arts.

Discography

Solo
YearNameRef
1993Ecology of Souls
1997/2017Sirens
1998/2017Seasonal Round
2017Chambers — Emergence Trilogy volume one
2017Elegeia — Emergence Trilogy volume two
2017spectral lyric — Emergence Trilogy volume three

Trance Mission
YearNameRef
1993Trance Mission
1995Meanwhile...
1996Head Light

Lights in a Fat City
YearNameRef
1993Sound Column
1999Memory Ground

Other appearances
YearNameArtistRef
1994LandingStephen Kent
1995The Shirt I Slept InBeth Custer
1996Halcyon Daysw/ Steve Roach & Stephen Kent