John Sully (Sullivan) is a NYSCA awarded composer, sound designer, and performance artist from New York City, certified with an MFA in Sound Design from the Yale School of Drama. His compositions and designs for stage and film have crossed the globe including Europe, Asia, Australia and North, Central and South America.
As the resident composer for TEMPORARY DISTORTION, Sully has created the music and sound designs for the stage productions, ONE WILL SPEAK/THE OTHER IS DEAD, WELCOME TO NOWHERE, AMERICANA KAMIKAZE, NEW YORK LAND, MY VOICE HAS AN ECHO IN IT and THE ILLUSION AND THE AFTERMATH as well as the video installation AN INSTRUMENT FOR THE MEASURE OF ABSENCE. Sully was an artist in residency at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center and at EMPAC—The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center.
Sully has seen the world as a touring member of LA MAMA’s GREAT JONES REPERTORY, dance company LOCO 7 and is a collaborator with La Mama Residents PIONEERS GO EAST COLLECTIVE.
As a multimedia artist Sully created the site-specific performance art group AUGENBLICK and was a founding member of the artist collective WANDERLUST NYC. Sully’s original video installations IDEAL BEACH, IDEAL VALLEY and IDEAL AVENUE were featured in NYC Fringe Festival and FABnyc.
On Broadway Sully has assisted principal sound designer Fitz Patton for Harvey Fierstein’s TORCH SONG directed by Moises Kaufman, Steve Martin’s METEOR SHOWER directed by Jerry Zaks and Edward Albee’s THREE TALL WOMEN directed by Joe Mantello.
Sully also facilitates sound healing happenings, focusing on resonant frequency mind body activation and full sound immersion, mediation, and chanting.
In 2018 he teamed up with XIX Collective and MojoVideoTech to present, META-7 (an alchemic opera) where audience members lay on a sub-bass vibrating floor surrounded by a 7.1 sound system inside a 360° video mapped dome, with original music, guided meditation and personal journey narration which continued into 2022 for the multi-sensory live event JUNGLE MAGIC at H’OM in Homestead Florida USA.
In 2023 Sully wrote, produced, and released the third Sons Of Venus album Crisis to Crisis on Rough Trade Records to critical acclaim and Temporary Distortion returned to New York City for Prelude festival with their new show STANDING ON THE UNSEEN SPIRALS OF THE VORTEX.
In 2024 Temporary Distortion toured New Zealand with the installation MEDITATION CRATE (Transducer) and Spain with AN INSTRUMENT FOR THE MEASURE OF ABSENCE.
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