John Ferguson

Born at the end of 1980, I grew up in and around Northumberland and currently reside in Wallsend near Newcastle upon Tyne. My background is in vernacular performance practice and studio composition, a decade of guitar slinging gigs complements formal study under Matthew Sansom, Bennett Hogg and Will Edmondes. Following a HND in Music Technology I fueled my creative curiosity, completing BMus and MMus degrees at Newcastle University.
I am an electronic musician. My practice is grounded in improvisation and real-time music making. My work is inspired by notions of instability, and focuses on tactile approaches to the live manipulation of audio/visual materials. Predicated on listening and real-time (re)negotiation, my combination of hacked electronics, wireless gaming controllers and custom software/mechanical systems is frequently loud and exuberant. But the resistance inherent within these instrumental ecologies significantly affects the compositional process, raising issues of causality, agency and legibility, whilst foregrounding ambiguity as an alternative to functionalism in interface design. I am active as one half of the Tron Lennon improvisation duo (with Paul Bell), involved in multiple collaborative projects with Bennett Hogg, and have shared the stage with Atau Tanaka, Robert van Heumen, Gwilly Edmondez, Graeme Wilson, John Ayers, Mat Postle, Bill Thompson, Adam Parkinson and Will Schrimshaw. I am currently a PhD candidate in Music based at Culture Lab, Newcastle University (UK), where I am writing up my thesis and teaching on various undergraduate modules. I recently completed a short European tour culminating at Club Maria in Berlin where my work with Tron Lennon was nominated for the Transmediale award 2008.
Some info on the above extracts: "WPS One" is the first track from a new duo album with Robert van Heumen recorded in June 2008. "Thank you Reverend" is a Tron Lennon composition produced for SOUNDMUSEUM.FM . “ionvinsinter” formed part of my final MMus recital, and featured nearly fifty channels of live audio and twelve loudspeakers in an immersive surround sound environment, three sets of windchimes were amplified (via piezo contacts) and distributed so that the audience appeared to be listening from the centre of each set, these were activated by multiple desk fans and remotely controlled from a central performance area. The other elements of the piece were formed using sine tones to manipulate objects placed in upturned speaker cones, and amplifying the result… this recording doesn’t exactly do it justice! "A Dark Room on a Summer’s Day" is a collaboration with Bennett Hogg , John Ayers and Will Schrimshaw and was released by Clinical Archives on 27th Novembver 2007 and can be streamed or downloaded here . “True Love” is a collaboration with Gwilly Edmondez, a duo project known as “Randy Wormhole”, this track is taken from our debut album “Shaming of the True”. "AV Minimal Techno ish live..." is an audio visual duo project with Adam Parkinson AKA ilton joan , more info at http://www.fergalstrandy.co.uk ,
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