Based in Rotterdam, NL, The Young is a micro global agency helping brands with immersive research, tangible strategy, storytelling, and imaginative design. It specializes in Smart Mobility, Retail innovation, and Sustainable Transition with clients such as BMW, Jaguar, and Gazelle. As a remote employee, I am involved with brand storytelling, research, and copywriting.
Founded by Casey Reas, Ben Fry, Daniel Shiffman, and Lauren McCarthy, the Foundation promotes software literacy within the arts by developing and distributing a group of related software projects, which includes Processing (Java), p5.js (JavaScript), and Processing.py (Python), and facilitating partnerships and collaborations with allied organizations and individuals, to build a more diverse community around software and the arts... During my time there, I conducted the first community survey and launched the online membership drive and website redesign in collaboration with Folder Studios. I was a co-mentor, along with Lauren McCarthy, for an afterschool and summer camp program called DIY Girls. The artist-led partnership created code-based curriculum for future community initiatives. With board members, Casey Reas, Ben Fry, Daniel Shiffman, and Lauren McCarthy, I organized and helped select Processing Foundation Fellowships, which are annual awards for ambitious software development and community projects with funding and guidance from the Foundation.
David Lynch Foundation Program Strategist / Assistant Director of Los Angeles. 2013-2016.
Created by artist / filmmaker David Lynch, the nonprofit organization aims to reduce stress and the side effects of trauma to support cognitive and emotional well-being through meditation programs... Over the three years I was with the organization, I led Los Angeles outreach efforts and participated in numerous projects [ e.g. board meetings and minutes, events and digital fundraising efforts, grants, celebrity and high-income donor management, regional budgeting ]. With the help of school leadership, teachers, and parents, I launched and led the Quiet Time Program [ the specific title for school initiatives ] in South Los Angeles at Frederick Douglass Middle School. I tracked statistical and subjective outcomes such as attendance, behaviour, and performance to strategise and optimize future initiatives. Teacher and family buy-in was vital for success, so it was crucial to foster relationships based on consistency and trust. I also researched, edited, and wrote grants. I dealt with high-profile donors, which required a high level of sensitivity because of their public status. For Los Angeles fundraising events, I provided production assistance for The Music of David Lynch at The Theatre at Ace Hotel, 2015; Lifetime of Peace & Love Concert feat. Ringo Starr, 2014; Lifetime of Harmony Gala feat. Rick Rubin, 2014. I served as the Los Angeles-based assistant director for the development office based in New York City.
STC works with a network of urban schools to enhance and expand real-world learning opportunities for low-income students in order to revitalise the education-to-employment pathway and ensure young people are prepared to succeed in a rapidly changing world. I organized community roundtables with local government officials, philanthropic and academic leaders, and other nonprofits. I led outreach for the Newark, New Jersey region, writing nationally distributed newsletters and oversaw local network school recruitment, which expanded from three to ten schools from December 2011 to June 2011.
Performing Musician International Touring and Recording Artist. 2008-2011.
Piedmont College Writing Tutor & Graduate Assistant, Library. 2005-2008.
Exhibitions
Heaven to the Cloud / Royal College of Art : my final MA research project presented as an exhibition and live performance exploring digital rituals as culturally familiar forms of ceremony in an attempt to better illuminate the complexities of the commodified internet and the algorithmic integrity of artificial intelligence. 2019.
Amid / Dyson Gallery with Inés Cámara Leret : a real-time sonification of air in response to minute-to-minute changes of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and ozone gases. The gases are most commonly associated with air pollution. The aim of the project is to recontextualize the experience of climate change by creating a new experience that transcends political biases. Each gas is assigned specific tones and notes. As detected levels increase and decrease in the space, the musicality follows up and down scale. 2018.
Rrose Selavy's Dada Extravaganza / Royal Academy of Arts : group installation, live performance and production for RA Lates celebrating the Salvador Dalí / Marcel Duchamp exhibition. London, 2017.
Tectonic Apperception / Crisp-Ellert Art Museum at Flagler College : an interactive sound installation conceived as a sonic organism with microtonal movements, shifting itself across the architecture as sound installation. Tectonic movement within the space of the body — human or architectural — conveys the sonic field as a fully present, fluid, interactive object with physical (sculptural) properties that shape our reality. Using a light sensor and Arduino microcontroller, the installation processes and responds to real-time variations in sunlight, evolving as a spatially aware, sonic consciousness within its environment. Florida, 2016.
Not Just A : 202 Gallery @ Central Saint Martins. 2018.
May The Light Come Back / La Tôlerie Gallery in Clermont-Ferrand, France : voice synthesis sound installation with Judith Deschamps + Yaprak Goker. Clermont-Ferrand, France, 2017.
Flat Earth Folded / Big Medium Gallery : a multimedia, immersive sound installation with Greg Pond using transducers to activate various materials as speakers. The exhibition is both site and sense-specific. The arrangement of objects and sound in the work creates a reframing and redescribing of our temporal and spatial experience. A sonic transducer transforms the material to which it is attached into the device that conveys pulses of energy into audible sound. This transformation of energy to sound to spatial/sculptural arrangement defines the structure for each of these projects. Flat Earth Folded explores the conceived relationship between space and object by utilizing sound as witness and the primary agent of inquiry of physical space. This approach is both ancient and modern. Electronic media and computer music programming are combined with an experience of sound that is defined by the material and spatial arrangement of the landscape constructed within the gallery. Austin, TX, 2015.
Sirens in the Blank / Hockney Gallery at RCA : voice synthesis installation in collaboration with Judith Deschamps. 2018.
Flat Earth Unfolded / University Gallery at University of the South : multimedia sound, sculpture, and interactive video exhibition with Greg Pond using ceramic and steel objects, transmitting deconstructed sound designed with Ableton Live and Pure Data software in response to their material and shape. The result is an acoustic sculpture that is musical and spatially articulated while drawing attention to the physicality of sound and its narrative power. Sewanee, TN, 2014.
Stereoma / Hunter Museum of American Art : a sound installation with Greg Pond using transducers on glass. The 30' tall glass walls were turned into speakers using processed field recordings, exploring the relationship between sound and space in architecture. 2014.
Multimedia Design
'Britbot Chatbot' production assistant (research, data scraping, website front-end development) for commissioned Machine Learning project with Artist + Quantum Physicist Libby Heaney. 2018.
'Tadra' is a sonically guided drawing experience created with Processing software, which explores the relationship between drawing, communication, and sound. As a participant draws, audio frequency changes occur along the X-axis and amplitude changes occur along the Y-axis. Our documented research included a test where individuals draw primitive geometric shapes and are then asked to listen to the next participant draw the same shapes to see if they can detect them via sound. Potential applications are new illustration experiences for the blind and new language development between youth via computer interactivity. 2017.
Vogue Paris music for videos of Fashion Week Milan and Paris and Chanel's 100th Anniversary Cruise to Singapore. 2013-2014.
Supporting Paragliding in Malawi, Africa / Cloudbase Foundation + Keen Footwear documentary score. 2014.
Performance Highlights
All Tomorrow’s Parties Curated by Animal Collective, UK ∆ J. Paul Getty Museum, LA ∆ Isle of Wight Festival, UK ∆ Midi Festival, France ∆ Festival Internacional de Benicàssim, Spain ∆ Sasquatch! Music Festival, Washington State ∆ Parklife Festival, Milan ∆ Bestival, UK ∆ End of the Road Festival, UK ∆ SXSW, Austin TX ∆ The Bowery Ballroom, NYC ∆
Discography
Traditions, Vol. II compilation: “Avatar Feels” je5c feat. El Mir, Memory No. 36 Recordings (2016) *
A Cool Kind of Love LP: Tommy Toussaint, Chill Mega Chill Records (2015) *
#cc10 mixtape: “I Don’t Wanna Cry” Tommy Toussaint, Creative Commons + Bad Panda Records (2013) *
Traditions, Vol. I compilation: “Floating Islands” Tommy Toussaint, Memory No. 36 Records (2013) *
Portals Summer II mixtape: “Summer of Love” Tommy Toussaint, Portals, Chill Mega Chill Records, Miscreant Records (2013) *
Computer Snacks EP: Tommy Toussaint, Bad Panda Records (2013) *
Summer USA EP: Tommy Toussaint, Make Mine Records (2011) *
Cosmic Caverns EP: Tommy Toussaint, Cats Purring Collective (2010) *
The Good Feeling Music of Dent May and His Magnificent Ukulele: Dent May, Paw Tracks (2009)
Self-Taught Skills
HTML, CSS, Javascript, Sketch, Processing, p5j.s, Projection mapping, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Ableton Live, superCollider, Logic, Max, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, three.js, Adobe Premiere, Pure Data, Data Scraping and machine learning research. Music composition. Music production.