Dr. Toby Heys is a Professor of Digital Media at the School of Digital Arts (SODA) at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He helped design SODA, which hosts 2,000 students and covers XR, immersive media, blockchain, film, sound, music, gaming, animation, and future media production. After serving three years as Head of School, he now leads large-scale research projects. He founded the research units RiFT (Research into Future Technologies) and AMP (Algorithms for Marginalised People), which foster knowledge exchange and innovative pedagogical approaches.
Over a 30-year career, Heys has produced more than 200 solo and group exhibitions worldwide, creating multisensory immersive installations for venues such as Tate Britain, MAAXI Museum, and the Phi Centre. His recent work focuses on sonic, haptic, and interactive elements of immersive experiences, using technologies like virtual production, AI, robotics, and AR. He has published five books—including Ghostcode and Listening In—and is currently working on Multisensory Storytelling for Routledge.
AUDINT
AUDINT is a sonic research unit that speculates on future uses of sound, unsound and music to influence and manipulate human and otherworldly behaviour. We propose that ever since the invention of recording and communications technologies such as the phonograph and telephone, there has been a fascination with the potential of waveforms to fabricate domains of the Undead – aberrant zones of transmission between realms of the animate and the insensate. AUDINT also uses and amplifies the other side of sonic culture – the side of the record usually kept in the dark – music as a weapon. The research produced around these themes is turned into books, albums, installations, softwares and performances. Installations and performances have been carried out at venues such as – TATE Britain, Academy of Art (Berlin), Art in General (New York), Unsound Festival (Krakow), MARTA – Museum of Contemporary Art (Herford, Germany), Transmediale (Berlin) and New Forms Festival (Vancouver). Books include The Dead Record Office (Art in General Editiions, 2017) Unsound:Undead (Urbanomic, 2019), Ghostcode (Multimodal Press, 2021). Albums include Martial Hauntology (AUDINT Records, 2017) and Ghostcode AUDINT Records, 2024).
Live sound by Toby Heys and Thomas Couzinier.
Thomas Couzinier is a French composer and producer, known for his work in orchestral, electronic, and hybrid music. He’s also the co-founder of sound production companies Kouz and SuperPitch. Notable works include scores for INFINITI and Black Spot, sound design for the film Renaissance, and collaborations with filmmakers, brands, and artists such as AUDINT, Taika Waititi, Yeezy, Vuitton and Google. Based in Paris, he also performs with his band, Night Shapers. On his days off, he is a sonic weapon expert.
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