Fred Szymanski is a New York-based electroacoustic composer and sound-and-image artist whose work explores non-linear processes linked to generative systems.

Szymanski’s works have been performed at international festivals including, most recently, NYC Electroacoustic Music Festival, New York 2024 (Director, Hubert Howe), MA/IN 2023 (Artistic Director, Giulio Colangelo, Curators, Cesare Saldicco and Vittorio Montalti, Production, Leanna Ciciriello), LOXOSconcept, Italy, ArteScienza Festival, Rome (Curator, Giulio Colangelo) (2023), and NYU IRCAM Forum Concert, Brooklyn 2022 (Organized by Tae Hong Park).

His image-sound works have been featured at the Recombinant Media Lab’s Cinechamber (Artistic Director, Naut Humon) at Mutek (Montreal) and CTM.11 Festival (Berlin), SonicLIGHT (Amsterdam), the 9th Biennial of the Moving Image (Geneva), and the European Media Art Festival (Osnabrück).

Szymanski has been the recipient of several awards, including Premier Prix, Electroacoustique, Concours International de Composition Electroacoustique de Monaco (Artistic Director, Mario Mary) (2015), First Prize, Musica Nova (Artistic Direction, Lenka Dohnalová) (2017), and Special Mention, Città di Udine (2018), as well as Honorary Mention, Matera Intermedia Festival (MA/IN, 2016) and the International Destellos Competition (2017).

Under the moniker, A LAMINAR PROJECT, he has released recordings with the labels, Sub Rosa (Belgium), Asphodel Ltd. (San Francisco), JDK Productions (Amsterdam), Soleilmoon (Portland), and Staalplaat (Amsterdam).

His work has been exhibited at the Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology as part of the group show, What Sound Does a Color Make? (2005), at the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of the BitStreams show (2001), and at such venues as the Diapason Gallery for Sound (New York), Artists Space (New York), and the Valencia Biennial’s VideoRom. An early work was part of the Sonorità Prospettiche (Prospective sonorities) program at Suono Ambiente (Rimini, Italy), and travelled to the Venice Biennale, Kulturforum (Bonn), Kulturreferat (Munich), Lugano, Switzerland, and the City of Turin.

Szymanski studied film and video at RISD and, as a non-matriculated student, studied electronic music at Brown University’s MacColl Studios. During this period, he performed multichannel live electronic music in Boston and Providence. After relocating to New York, he performed live music as a member of the electronic/industrial band IKE YARD. The band released LPs for Factory America (U.S. offshoot of Factory Records) and Les Disques du Crepuscule (Belgium).