PHI AUDIO | BESPOKE HIGH END

ABOUT JACQUES VAN ZYL

The company PHI Audio is the brain child of Jacques van Zyl, where he functions as designer, owner and director.

His interests and involvements are by no means limited to PHI, and spans a wide field, ranging from music, fine art and philosophy to design, cooking, and writing.

In his role as musician and sound artist he often functions under the name hAshtAgblAck.n.o.i.s.e

His involvements in these fields are too many to list here, but he is currently involved on the board of the Sonic Exploration Network of Southern Africa (SENSA) as organiser, plays regularly with the Africa Open Improvising (AOI) collective of the Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation at the University of Stellenbosch, where he is currently holding the position of Research Fellow.

Current and recent projects include the Earthbox installation of The Dream Commission, various endeavours with AOI, and working with Juliana Venter on a large, interdisciplinary operatic project. In between all this, he is presently involved in a number of smaller artistic and musical collaborations, both nationally and internationally.

In addition to AOI, he is a member of the musical collectives Ski Crime (harsh noise), Coffin Soup (punk/experimental), and Gwaing (improvisation).

Where the fields of music and audio equipment overlap, he has designed and built varied self-designed sound reinforcement equipment, including electronic musical instruments, PA loudspeakers and amplifiers, effects boxes and pedals, and neural and nervous nets. These latter devices are regularly employed in his own musical practice, both as largely self-playing instruments and as controllers. His electronic creations have also been employed by a list of notable conceptual and multi-disciplinary artists and experimental musicians.

A workshop series named Mosfets Howling Dualities at the Moon is organised and presented by him. It teaches many of these practices to both new and experienced designers.

In addition to endeavours around art and music, he is an avid cook and food writer, has written a book and various magazine articles on craft beer and wine, and has won the SA Winewriter of the Year award for an article on the exemplary wine farm Lismore.

He also earns a living through writing a travel journal on a number of exploits he had been involved in in the past, and maintains a number of blogs and a small, ad-hoc online radio station named Watermelonradio.

His studies (sadly as yet uncompleted) have ranged from Physics and Mathematics to Astronomy, Psychology, Languages, and a post-graduate study program in Digital Arts at WITS.