Nick Fells is a composer and sound artist based in Glasgow, Scotland. He works with computer-mediated sound, using spatial audio processing to create textured and layered sonic environments that aim to bring audience, performers and composer together in the same frame of listening. He grounds his work in listening as active social experience, as a way of creating space to reflect, breathe, and dream, and to connect to environment.
He uses field recording and other experimental recording methods, improvisation, computer generated and animated notations, spatial audio, and digital signal processing techniques, making use of software platforms such as Max, Supercollider and Pure Data. His work sometimes involves live visual processing, and he collaborates widely with other performers. His research interests lie in autonomy and agency in the context of ensemble playing; how ensembles and other kinds of collaboration are transformed through technological practice; and how sound and listening act as agents of social change. He is also a shakuhachi player and improviser.
He is Professor of Sonic Practice at the University of Glasgow, where he researches and teaches in sonic arts and composition.