Our Team
SATSYMPH LLP is composer and visual artist Marc Yeats; poet, writer and context-aware media director and producer, Ralph Hoyte; and coder, composer and audio engineer Phill Phelps.
What We Do
We create located, spatialised and interactive soundworlds in the areas of contemporary music, contemporary music/word fusions, poetry, and ‘reimagined’ heritage interpretation.
‘Located’ means the soundworld augments a real-world, physical location: the soundworld can only be heard in that location. ‘Spatialised’ means the audio can come at you from any direction in that location – it is genuinely 3D. ‘Interactive’ means that what you hear depends on what you do: you create your own audio experience by twisting and turning, facing one direction or the other, moving slowly or quickly, holding your phone up to the sky or down to the earth within the soundworld. You download the app, enter the Magic Portal (in, for example, Queen Square in Bristol: 1831 RIOT!), put headphones on, and enter a parallel universe of sound.
This exciting and revolutionary approach to what ‘music’, ‘poetry’ and ‘heritage’ are and can be lies at the heart of what Satsymph do.
Satsymph LLP is classical contemporary composer and visual artist Marc Yeats; poet and writer Ralph Hoyte; coder, composer and audio engineer Phill Phelps. We were founded in 2011 and have many years of experience of creating these soundworld experiences.
“It’s as if the landscape is talking to you!” (User comment on the RomLitScape)
SATSYMPH LLP is a Limited Liability Partnership, Partnership No. OC367347; registered on the 16th August 2011 with the registered office for England and Wales.
A few things we’re great at
Creative Engagement with Heritage
Using our expertise as artists, we bridge the gap between science, heritage, history and communities through creating bespoke storytelling, music, field recordings and sonic enactments that reimagine heritage, bringing the past into the present to reveal the secrets of our hidden landscapes and places
Artistic Interpretation of the Built and Natural Environment
Having worked closely with the heritage sector over many years, we are in a position to design and deliver workshops, education work, community involvement and single or a suite of apps to suit your engagement needs and prioities.
Workshops with our Communities
We have experience of engaging local communities in a range of our projects through leading workshops that encourage content creation and interpretation work that is expertly curated into our apps.
Fusing Contemporary Music, Contemporary Poetry/Word and Innovative Coding
We bring together the unique skills of composer, writer and coder to produce compelling new sound art and interpretaive work that has a track record of 100% user satisfaction..
Latest Project News
Our Story
In 2004 Ralph Hoyte idea- initiated, then, with filmmaker Liz Crow, co-wrote, -directed and –produced 1831 RIOT!, ‘the world’s first audio-play for located media in an intelligent environment’ (The Guardian) for Mobile Bristol (with Hewlett-Packard Labs)
In 2009 he undertook a 6-month Technology Strategy Board-funded residency with the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol to look into ‘The Dramatic Potential of Pervasive Media’ and became a resident member of the studio
Having established that the concept actually works, we then formed SATSYMPH. SATSYMPH was subsequently short-listed for ‘the UK’s most ambitious new music award’, the £50,000 PRS Foundation New Music Award. The proposal was to create an ambitious worldwide GPS-triggered satellite symphony. We went on to win the public vote for this award (but not the actual award)
Later in 2009 Marc Yeats and Phill Phelps came on board. We worked collaboratively on an Arts Council-funded scoping study, A GPS-Triggered Poetic Symphony, as well as experimenting with other GPS-triggered mobile music / poetic / literary content
An iteration of our scoping study (‘NAIADS’) was ‘laid out’ in Nov 2010 alongside the River Britt in Dorset to create a virtual soundworld for ‘countertext’ (part of the Bridport Literary Festival); we relocated a variation on this theme further down the same river meadows (nearer Westbay) for ‘audiolab’ (PVA MediaLab/Labculture) in March 2011
Composition and production of SATSYMPH’s ‘On a Theme of Hermes’ was funded by the Arts Council, PVA MediaLab/Labculture (Bridport) and the Performing Rights Society for Music Foundation. ‘On a Theme of Hermes’ is geo-located around Hamworthy Park, Poole; the floating harbour, Bristol, and in Wroclaw, Poland. A further ‘portable’ iteration which can be experienced anywhere in the world at any time chosen by the user has also be created.
SATSYMPH became an LLP (Limited Liability Partnership) in October 2011
