Cezary Duchnowski, Paweł Hendrich, and Sławomir Kupczak founded the group Phonos ek Mechanes in Wrocław in 2007. Phonos ek Mechanes is a greek phrase which refers to sound from machines. The group produces a very particular kind of improvised electronic music nicknamed ‘human-electronics.’ The trio creates music with laptops controlled by traditional instruments including piano, electric guitar or violin. Via the computers, every parameter of a sound, pitch, velocity, duration, and timbre is transformed into a row of digits which are then metamorphosed into a new quality of sound.  Additionally, the instruments are prepared using microtonal. Phonos ek Mechanes is thus a mixture of human gesture, the specific character of playing an instrument and algorithms written in Max/MSP.

Cezary Duchnowski is composer and pianist, born in Elbląg, he studied composition under Leszek Wisłocki at the Academy of Music in Wrocław. He currently teaches computer music at the Academy of Music in Wrocław in addition to writing music for film and theatre. Paweł Hendrich is a composer, born in Wrocław, he graduated from the Department of Engineering and Economics at the Wrocław University of Economics and also studied composition at the Academy of Music in Wrocław and at the Hochschule für Musik Köln. Sławomir Kupczak, also born in Wrocław, studied composition under Jan Wichrowski and completed his post-graduate work in Stanisław Krupowicz’s composition class and Cezary Duchnowski’s computer composition class.