About
Biography
My name is Jeff Emtman. I'm an artist working with belief and fear. I fear the unknown, have troubles with my left eye, and am often more of a homebody than I wish I was.
My best-known project is called Here Be Monsters. It's a podcast about things that are impossible to know for certain. I started the show in 2012 with help from a grant from SoundCloud. In 2015, KCRW started distributing the podcast, which is when Bethany Denton joined the show in a much larger capacity.
Bethany and I know each other from college. We both went to a Fairhaven College at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. Fairhaven's the kind of school that lets you create your own major and makes you put a colon in the title of that major, whether you want the colon or not.
My major was called Social Portraiture: Photography and Audio through the Sociological Lens. The audio part of my major largely took place at KUGS, where they hire students for management roles of the station. I stopped pursuing photography professionally after the emergence of the aforementioned eye issue. I did a two-year stint as the KUGS News and Public Affairs Director, where I managed a small news team and first learned a lot of the skills I use today.
I grew up in a house out in the countryside of Eastern Washington State, where it's more dry and hilly than you might think. The town's called Pullman, Washington, and they have an annual festival for lentils with a big pot of lentil chili that they park outside the library and hand it out for free.
My work comes largely from my dreams, but also basements, fake plants and fluorescent tube lights. I have this thing that happens whenever I'm tired where my mind just starts playing memories that get louder and louder until I either stand up or take a nap. I suspect that my mind is quite tuned to spatial things. Plastic wood also interests me, as does linoleum, wallpaper, and venetian blinds.
Hopefully you know me a bit better now. Tell me who you are when we speak next, or contact me now.
Skills
Language
Fluent English. Intermediate German (B level).
Audio
I have a deep knowledge of editing, audio restoration, and sound design. The programs I feel most at home in are Reaper, Izotope RX, and Ableton Live. Currently learning Max/MSP
Visual
Most of my studies in college were related to visual art, namely photography and video. In making Here Be Monsters, I have picked up skills with vector graphics, 3D animation, and desktop publishing.
Other
Making Neutrinowatch means I'm constantly learning new things about coding (mostly with Python) and data processing. I also like to tinker with CSS and HTML (I wrote this website). Hoping to learn more about SQL and statistics soon.