Phil Stearns

Phillip Stearns (AKA Pixel Form) is a practitioner of sound and visual arts; music composer and performer; electronics sculptor and installation artist. He is a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts music composition department where he studied with David Rosenboom, Hans W. Koch, Michael Pisaro, Mark Trayle, Sarah Roberts, Tom Leeser, and Andy Kopra. Central to his practice are the use of custom electronics, hand-craft, hardware hacking techniques, media technologies and procedural processes. He views technology as a site for exploring contemporary society, cultural tendencies, and the horizons of violence, politics, information, noise, control, proximity, parity, subversion, corruption, interconnectedness and interrelatedness. Characteristic of his work is judicial use of materials, restraint, simplicity, a careful balance between conceptual depth and playfulness. He has presented, performed, lectured, exhibited, led workshops, and screened works at various festivals, conferences, residencies, museums and institutions around the US and Northern Europe including STEIM, Darmstadt, Torrance Art Museum, Machine Project, Telic, Optica film festival, ISIM conference, GLAMFA exhibition, Spark festival, Bent festival, Soundwalk, Chaos Communications Camp, Cal Arts, SFSU, UCSD, UC Davis, and Mills College.