Thomas Bey William Bailey

Working with a number of different communications media, TBWB aims to construct a body of work that interrogates notions of utopia, anthropocentrism, and “the extreme”, while refusing to reject any unpopular cultural manifestation as invalid until its parameters have been fully mapped out, and its more nuanced aspects brought to light.

An admitted autodidact, TBWB draws upon the work of a diverse body of 20th and 21st Century thinkers to aid him in a personal quest for “serious playfulness”. Johan Huizinga, John Gray (Straw Dogs), Friedrich Kittler, Paul Virilo, Gilles Deleuze, Gregory Bateson and numerous others all contribute to TBW’s jargon-free, non-specialist writings on creative life.

As a sound enthusiast and artist, he takes his cues from composers such as Iannis Xenakis and the new contingente of computer-aided- “psycho- acoustic” artists: those with no fear of using the full spectrum of audible sound to produce rapturous, ecstatic moments of deep personal inquiry.

His writings have been published in multiple languages, and in newsstand magazines (The Whire, HiS Voice, A2 Cultural Weekly) as well as the weblogs and online presences of arts and culture institutions (Rhizome.org, Vague Terrain, etc.). The thematic concerns mentioned above are most fully investigated in his first book (Micro Bionic, Creation Books, 2009) and his forthcoming volumen (Unofficial Release: Handmade And Self-Released Music In Post-Industrial Society).

He has also hosted a program on London’s Resonance FM treating 21st Century Electronic composition, and worked as an educador in Japan and Central Europe.