Profile

Sam Hamilton is an artist and musician residing in Auckland, New Zealand.

His exploration of sound has found him blindly melting meaningless-joyful-free-noise-psychedelic-punk-rock or spending months traipsing the Amazon rain forest in Brazil, Colombia and Peru recording the sounds of the frogs, ants, bats and other creatures of the jungle.

Somewhere between burying himself deep into experimental film making and Expanded Cinema explorations, rich textural excavations of electronic synthesis, architecturally enveloping sound installations, psycho-occultist group improvisations with ancient gongs in weird public places, 5 hour surround sound musique concrete collage performances, talent-free anti-virtuosic singer-song writing duo’s, creating film soundtracks or 30 piece choirs of artists specialising in performing replications of group frog mating calls from the Amazon you might find Sam pondering the purpose of an alarm clock.


In other words, an over abundance of interests, and an explosive eagerness to explore the boundless wonders possible when exploring artistic dialogues with the world are a part of.


His enthusiasm and investigation of a large artistic mediums and a passion for artistic interaction have led him to work or collaborate with a diverse range of musicians, scientists, film makers and other such illuminating artists from NZ and abroad such as Andrew Scott, Mark Sadgrove, Eve Gordon, Tim Coster, Paul Winstanley, Chris O’Connor, Dean Roberts, Phil Dadson, Francisco Lopez (Spain), Richard Francis, Adam Willetts, Zebignew Karkowski, James McCarthy, the Tall Dwarfs, Christian Galarreta (Peru), Wilber Gonzales (Peru), NZ Trio, Zoe Drayton, Campbell Kneale, Antony Milton, Stephen Neville, Guy Maddin (UK), Slavek Kwi (Ireland), Charlie Charlie (France), Mark Tryle (US), Joel Stern (Australia), Scott Sinclair (Australia), Fats White, Chris Watson, the Vitamin S community etc.
He has produced recorded works, performances and installations that have been presented in various ways in places such as galleries, cinema’s and radio in NZ and Australia as well as parts of South America, UK, USA and Europe. He has been reviewed in a number of publications from the international experimental music press leaders the WIRE magazine to Auckland’s Metro Magazine. He has toured both sound and film performances through-out NZ, Australia and South America for festivals, concert series, independent organizations, bookstores, record stores, house parties, warehouse shows, galleries and busking.


Hamilton is also a very active promoter and organiser of events, festivals workshops and the likes that have a focus in various directions of his interest. He has created, directed and curated such things as festivals and programs of experimental film, including “fps” for the Auckland International Film Festival along with Phil Dadson and Eve Gordon, the Cinema Ascension Festival with Eve Gordon, experimental music festivals and events such as the Alleluya Noise Festival, Alleluya Noise Events the Borderline Music Club and more. He has also been quite involved in the orientation of Auckland’s most active venue of grass roots fringe music and arts, the Wine Cellar.

Projects involved including:
- CNZ Creative Professional Development funding for Amazon Resounding Project
- Starving Artist Fund grant for Amazon Resounding Project
- CNZ Screen Innovation Production funding for production of “Blue Tide, Black Water”, 35mm experimental film collaboration with Eve Gordon.

• Publications (1)
• Awards (1)
• Events (3)