Felix Hess
Felix Hess (1941, Den Haag, 2022, Haren) was a Dutch sound artist, natural scientist and filantrop. He graduated 1967 in biology at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Between 1975 and 1979 he was researcher at the University of Adelaide, where he became interested in the communication patterns of frogs. He wrote his doctor's thesis on the aerodynamics of the boomerang and did research on the hydrodynamics of ships and fish and on the atomic structure of metals. The calls of frogs in Australia, Mexico, and Japan inspired him to use electronic components to construct small devices simulating the communication behavior of living systems. His research on sound led towards the sonic phenomena like infrasound. Hess builds small audio machines, like the "Moving Sound Creatures" and "How light is changed into music". His work is exemplary for the development of semi-autonomous sound machines. Felix Hess has been active in the field of sound art and installation art for almost 40 years and has exhibited his work all over the world. In 2003 received de Witteveen+Bos award for Art and Technology for his entire work.