Somfay, also known as Jes, is a Canadian music producer, DJ and visual artist based in Elora, Ontario, working across video, sound and analog electronics.,,His practice centres on a concept he calls Electronic Kintsugi, reviving forgotten analog equipment, sounds and ideas from other eras to reveal something hidden within them.His psychedelic, dreamlike visuals blend music and image into a single synesthetic experience.,
Under the name Fermata Positronics, he hand-modifies vintage analog video processors from the 1980s into what he calls Video Prisms, circuit-bent instruments that distort video signals into unpredictable colours, textures and patterns, each hand-built and shipped from his own store in Elora.He began releasing video works under this practice in 2021, starting with Positronica and Event Horizon, followed the same year by Corrugation Chamber. Later series include Under An Artificial Sun (2022-2024) and Alma Aera (2022), alongside the ongoing Dreemtyme series, begun in 2022.
In 2023 the publication Fakewhale included him in a survey of GIF artists, describing his work as “expressive psychedelic amalgamations of past, present, and future” that blend sound and vision into synesthetic dreamscapes.His work has also appeared in Fakewhale group exhibitions released on Objkt, including “GIF CLASH” in April 2023.
