CURRENT MISSION

Enhance, multiply and enable artistic expression. Design immersive multimedia systems. Spend more time reading, cooking, meditating and riding my bicycle. Get back to nature.

ABOUT ME

I'm and early-30s multimedia professional working for the University of Illinois. I co-run the Media Commons at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign building, maintaining and running video and audio studies, consulting on and teaching Media Production. I also run a small recording studio and do freelance work in music, video and live production. Lately I've been spending most of my energy on bringing immersive, multimedia experiences to life in live performance and installation. Video art and spatial sound thrill me.

Some years ago, I ran a webseries that highlighted local music in Champaign Urbana (www.urbanabasement.com). I love to experience local music and dig into the microcosms of culture whenever I travel :)

As a recording engineer, I generally find something I like in just about every genre of music, but lately world, lo-fi electronic, and classical are gettin the most air time. I love to play guitar, cook whole foods, read and spend time in the outdoors. While I spent my youth and early-20s on many trips to the outdoors (camping, canoeing, backpacking trips to the Rockies), but that has waned a bit as "the hustle" of my late-20s/early-30s has set in...this is something I'm actively working to change. Let me know where the good hikes are!

PS - I get an inordinate amount of pleasure from keeping a clean house. No better way to clear your mind than doing dishes! ;)

PHILOSOPHY

A ponderer and explorer who finds the world endlessly fascinating. I love to bring people together via live shows (playing, amplifying, live video art) and hosting potlucks. Traveling, cooking, reading, bikes, camping, climbing, mountainous sojourns, good beer, listening to records, bonfires, deep conversation, games and building/fixing things

A persistent goal in my life is to travel and see as much of the world as I can. I greatly enjoy meeting new people and digging into their cultures as well as experiencing the solitude only the backwoods on a mountain can provide. Music transcends language :)

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I've been aware of and marginally active on the couchsurfing website ever since I studied abroad in Rome in 2008; however, I have yet to host anyone through the site (many a traveling musician has surfed my couches over the years though!). I'm more than willing to host and would love to show someone my home town just as much as I appreciate those in foreign places doing so for me :)

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Nothing more than surfing my friends couches and staying with friends of friends while traveling.

Interests

Spatial, immersive sound
Analog Audio & Video Synthesis
Music Videography
Cooking whole foods
Reading
Outdoors activities
Leveraging Technology for Creative and our Utilitarian Purposes

• cooking
• red wine
• running
• electronics
• technology
• reading
• traveling
• music
• guitar
• outdoor activities
• backpacking
• camping
• communications
• engineering
• physics
• craft beer
• video art
• experimental art
• installation art
• new cuisines
• spatial sound
• a well-made lager

Music, Movies, and Books

I'm not partial to any type of music - I can generally find something to appreciate about any vibrating sound waves. These days the most spins come from electroacoustic, lo-fi beats, latin independent, modern jazz, western classical, afrobeat, 70s electronic, Indian folk music, and experimental modular synthesis.

Mostly sci-fi, history and relationships. The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness, Stranger from a Strange Land, Anything by Kurt Vonnegut (though it's been years), The Mars Trilogy, Brave New World, The Island, A Short History if Nearly Everything, What If?

Anything David Attenborough speaks on

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Spent some nights in an eco-lodge on an island in a lake in the caldera of a long-dormant volcano in Central Africa. Spent a late night gambling for high-end champaign over indoor mini-golf in a secret bar in NYC.

Teach, Learn, Share

I would love to share knowledge I have in music, cooking, camping/backpacking, and electronics. If you're a musician - I would even record a song or two for you :)

What I Can Share with Hosts

A tune, Deep Conversation, I can probably fix your computer if it's broken or help you optimize your stereo system!

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mauritius, Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

Italy, United States