Toby Heys
Toby Heys is a Professor of Digital Media in the School of Digital Arts (SODA) at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. Founding a range of collectives such as the KIT Collaboration, Battery Operated and AUDINT, his cross-disciplinary methodology is the driver of installations, mobile apps, books, immersive experiences, vinyl recordings, performances, and multi-sensory environments. Much of Heys’ recent funded work focuses on the sonic, haptic and interactive elements of the immersive experience, an area he has been exploring and advancing for over 30 years through industry-based projects, gallery exhibitions and festivals. He also works on the on/off boarding of immersive experiences and the multimodal approach to narrative construction in installations that utilise advanced digital technologies XR, AI and robotics.
Heys has produced over 100 solo and 100 group exhibitions for museums, galleries and festivals around the world. He has produced multi-sensory immersive installations for venues such as Tate Britain (London), The Academy of Art (Berlin), The Phi Centre (Montreal) Art in General (New York) and Zorlu Performing Arts Centre (Istanbul), Photographers Gallery (London) and Arte Alameda (Mexico City). Heys has also produced performative installations for many festivals including Transmediale (Berlin), Mutek (Montreal), Multimedia Art Asia Pacific (Brisbane) and Unsound (Krakow). Heys has written five books that range from expanded graphic novels to academic research texts. Recently he wrote AUDINT’s (Multimodal), which is accompanied by a double vinyl soundtrack and edited AUDINT’s Unsound/Undead (Urbanomic). He is co-author of the upcoming book Listening In: How Audio Surveillance became Artificial Intelligence (Bloomsbury, 2026) and is working on a new book, Phantom Channels , for .
