The Holladay Brothers

Brothers Ryan and Hays Holladay explore the intersection of art and technology to reimagine how sound is experienced, with projects ranging from multichannel audio installations to interactive performances and mobile apps. The Holladay Brothers have done groundbreaking work in location-aware music composition: music created and mapped to a physical space, released as mobile apps, that use a mobile device’s GPS to dynamically alter the music as the listener traverses a landscape. Their first production, “The National Mall,” a location-aware piece mapped to the Mall in Washington, DC, was described by music critic Chris Richards “magical…like using GPS to navigate a dream.” They went on to create similar works for Central Park in New York, SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas, and are engaged in a long-term project of sonically mapping the entirety of the Pacific Coast Highway with Stanford University’s Experimental Media Art Department. With work also spanning interactive live performances, speaking engagements and workshops – Ryan is a 2013 TED Fellow and 2014 Aspen Ideas Scholar – the brothers have garnered critical acclaim are lauded by WIRED as being “pioneers.”