Jordan Hochenbaum

(co-founder)

Jordan Hochenbaum is a musician and multimedia artist concerned with finding meaningful connections between music, art, and technology. At a young age, Jordan developed a keen interest in the composition, and decomposition of both audio and electronics. Early in his life, computers were constantly being taken apart and reassembled, guitars smashed, and old toys and found objects circuit-bent and scrambled. While Jordan found a comforting beauty in reconfiguring the old, it wasn’t long before Jordan’s artistic desires also led him to the need of designing and creating expressive, custom devices. From a list spanning custom-made tube Theremins to the large-scale musical multi-touch interface Bricktable, Jordan’s work is informed by an eclectic background and interests in sound and technology.

Education and Current Work

Jordan is pursuing his PhD in Sonic Arts at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. In 2009, Jordan received his Bachelors of Fine Art from California Institute of the Arts, where he studied in a multidisciplinary program mixing music and technology. Jordan’s current hub of interests includes designing new musical interfaces for live performance, analog and digital electronics, multimodal sensor-systems, and playing & composing a wide range of musical genres ranging from electronic music to North Indian classical.

Jordan’s work has been featured online and in print, including Wired and XLR8R Magazine, on Processing.org, and at international festivals and conferences including Google I/O, NASA’s Yuri’s Night, and Berlin Open 2009.

Resume [PDF]

Owen Vallis

(co-founder)

As an artist and co-founder of FlipMu, Owen Vallis is fascinated by the intersection of sound and technology. This curiosity has driven Owen to explore a diverse range of projects including producing other musicians, composing his own music, building various analog and digital audio processors, and designing new hardware interfaces for musical expression and interaction. Moving from Toronto, Canada to San Francisco to Nashville to Los Angeles and now Wellington, New Zealand, Owen has been able to develop a broad and interesting cross section of musical ideologies and aesthetics. This diverse background helps to create context from which new works can be created and explored.

Education and Current Work

In 2008, Owen graduated from the MTIID program at California Institute of the Arts, and is now currently pursuing his PhD in Sonic Arts at the New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington.

Over the past 10 years, Owen has worked as an engineer in studios around Nashville Tennessee and Los Angeles, built a recording facility from the ground up, produced and mixed several notable bands from the Los Angeles area, had production work featured in major motion films, and worked for leading ribbon microphone manufacturer Royer Labs.

Owen’s work has been featured in Wired, Future Music, Pitchfork and XLR8R magazine, on Processing.org, and shown at events such as NASA’s Yuri’s Night, Google I/O and the Berlin Open conference in 2009.

Resume [PDF]