Jim Smithyes

Bio

Jim Smithyes graduated from the University of Brighton with a Masters in Sequential Design. During his course, he established a collaborative practice with his alter ego Tiago De Sousa. Together, they wrote their thesis and created a short film of themselves being interviewed, discussing their joint creative practice and the trials and tribulations of creative collaboration. 

After completing his Masters, Jim Smithyes with Tiago De Sousa, Grant Cieciura and Caleb Madden, established the Antivoid Alliance, an ever-expanding artist collective exploring the intersection between radical politics and performative art making. The Antivoid Alliance’s outputs include live AV performance, audio, voice, video installation, live art intervention, interaction, film, graphics and noise. The Antivoid Alliance collective has and continues to work with, amongst others: Cour’en (of Spirit of Gravity), lovers post-rock; Dissapointman, comedic resignation; EUSO, mire mystics and virtual combat rhythm;  Mothwasp, deep-grain frequency dives; I AM FYA, Barbadian bass science, echo voice iterations and undefinable grandeur; Their Majesties Ludd Púka vs Dr RAYPOWER, poetic spectral vocalities over regional radio broadcasts; Yumino Seki, radiant heretic rituals and fractal karaoke; Stephen Mallinder (of Cabaret Voltaire/Wrangler), industrious rhythms and viral synthetics.

Tiago De Sousa with Jim Smithyes and the Antivoid Alliance wrote and delivered a paper: ‘Noise-Art-Practice As Promethean Technology For The Creation Of Fugitive Rationalities’ to accompany a screening of their film, ‘Xenofuturism: Welcome To The Antivoid’ at the University of Greenwich. The paper and accompanying screening were part of the Sound/Image colloquium presented by the School of Design. The colloquium explored the relationships between sounds and images, and the images which sounds can construct by themselves. Specifically, their paper detailed a challenge to hyperstitional theory by calling out its necessary colonisation of the future as being predicated upon a singular and despotic vision. The film was also selected and shown at Fabrica gallery, as part of the Cinecity film festival in Brighton.

In 2023 Radiophrenia, a temporary art radio station from the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow broadcast SPAMJAM, a live recording at Brighton Electric, Sunday 20 June 2021, created by Tiago De Sousa with Jim Smithyes and the Antivoid Alliance. SPAMJAM (Social Parrhesia As Musical JAM) was a rehearsal of a people yet to come in a place still being built, an unspokenword night of joyous resistance, of reverberation and resonance.

AMASS, documented and augmented a 17-hour live internet stream that took place on midwinters night 2020. The initial all-night online event included original practice research by Jim Smithyes within a digital curation by the Antivoid Alliance, incorporating the work of 30+ other artists. AMASS took the form of an artist’s book. The design and content of the book featured extracts from the initial live stream. In line with the collaborative nature of the online work, the book was designed and developed by the Antivoid Alliance in three-way collaboration with research partners from the Centre for Digital Media Cultures (CDMC) at the University of Brighton and the digital media agency, Cogapp. The authored book was published by the national experimental arts and music organisation, Outlands Network.

Radiant Heretic Potlatch, was the book launch for AMASS; a gig and an art happening on Midwinters night, December 2022 in Brighton. The third part of a multi-component output, Radiant Heretic Potlatch amassed a community of networked collaborators and technologies to perform together: from performance to book (AMASS) to performance, to envisage again. Radiant Heretic Potlatch engaged live with a physical audience of 50, (the initial AMASS Radiant Heretics was streamed live via Twitch. Radiant Heretic Potlatch explored how networked technologies resonate with and through older forms of community and collaboration.

Fractal Egg Karaoke Klub (FEKK), created by Jim Smithyes with the Antivoid Alliance, was a commission by Project 78 Gallery, in which seven practitioners were invited to undertake a ‘performance’ in a karaoke bar (a creative response to a chosen song lasting for the duration of the song. Performances included a Japanese sales pitch, an audio work exploring noise as a means of rupture and a makeshift capitalist shrine dedicated to the phrase, ‘hakuna matata’). The event was recorded with a 360 degree camera, edited with the insertion of post human ruptures and then shown to the public via a virtual reality headset placed within a glitter ball. 

Jim Smithyes has twenty years pedagogical experience. Prior to joining UCA, he was a visiting lecturer on the BA Hons Illustration Course at the University of Portsmouth. He was Curriculum Lead for the Foundation Art and Design course at Brighton Metropolitan College and subject-lead for A-Level Fine Art and A-Level Photography courses at Brighton and Hove Sixth Form College. 

Jim Smithyes wrote an article for The National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD), Issue 18, titled ‘Is Foundation Art Still Relevant?’ Being struck by the unprecedented changes occurring in the further- and higher education sectors and the effect this was having on Foundation Art courses across the country. He felt an article highlighting the fact that this essential component of art education was changing with little knowledge from the wider creative sector, to be essential. The article was a 'front line' account and reflection of the current creative education climate and the challenges to be faced on the horizon.