About Me

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Name: Felix Morrissey
Pronouns: Any/All
Orientation: Aro-Ace
Location: Orono, Maine, United States

Hobbies

I am a songwriter, music producer, programmer, and artist. I have a preference for working within the limitations of the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive game console, though I also enjoy branching out beyond those limitations in order to expand my capabilities. I began exploring my talents through creating ROM hacks of games in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Some of the more notable of these include Sonic 1: South Island Expedition, Sonic the Hedgehog: Isle of Magnetic Artifacts, and Hellfire Saga. More recently, I've expanded into homebrew through solo-developing a custom game engine.

I am proficient in Motorola 68k assembly, but also learned C and Python at college and HTML, CSS, and Javascript in the development of this site. When creating music, I prefer Furnace when creating chiptunes and FL Studio for general use. As a musician, I most often use my voice, though I also play the trombone, violin, and keyboard instruments such as the piano, chord organ, and synthesizer. The latter is my favorite instrument due to its versatility, variety, and complexity.

Education

I attended the University of Maine between 2019 and 2023 and graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering with Honors. My senior project involved designing and building a monophonic analog synthesizer and my honors thesis detailed the process, which included writing, recording, and producing several songs for it. You can read about it here. My minor was in Studio Art.

Philosophy

I'm motivated by a desire for self-improvement in order to become someone capable of making great positive change in the world. I believe that by dedicating myself to my passions, I can gain the knowledge and skill required to create things that are worthwhile, deconstruct things for the purpose of building knowledge, and assist others so that they can do the same.

"How does creating art achieve that goal?"

I believe that now more than ever, the communication of ideas has a tangible effect on the ways people think and act. Art is the expression of ideas and fiction can communicate real ideas in ways that people can interact with through discussion. By creating worthwhile art, we can inspire discussion, leading to change.

Of course, I can't expect all my art to have that kind of influence nor can I expect people to see the merits of my art through that alone. Fortunately, art can inherently add to the world through its impact on the observer. When paired down to its fundamentals, appreciation of art is just the mind comprehending patterns, but those patterns can elecit emotions and coalesce into experiences. Good art can create feelings so complex and so pleasurable that it makes life more enjoyable, and that's an ultimate good.

When it comes to how art should be distributed, I consider myself a copyright law abolishionist. I think all creative works should be in the public domain including my own.

Aside from my beliefs on the power of art, I try to have a strong set of principles. I fundamnetally believe that all humans deserve equal rights and that any attempts to structure people into a hierarchy should be dismantled. I'm anti-war, anti-capitalism, and an advocate for the rights for marginalized groups, including (but not limited to) people of color, disabled people, and the LGBTQ+.

Influences

When it comes to music, I grew up primarily listening to indie rock and as a result, that forms the foundation of the music I tend to make. However, I'm constantly researching and listening to a variety of new music. I try to take elements from a variety of artists and genres and combine them in ways that work together. Some of my favorite things include the evolving textures of Radiohead, the wonderous melodies of Kate Bush, the expressiveness of of Montreal, the psychedic beats and impactful lyricism of Kendrick Lamar, the varied explorations of Damon Albarn, the honesty and hypnotic rhythms of the Flaming Lips, and the dense chaos of the Olivia Tremor Control and Circulatory System.

Fun Facts