Marcin Kaczmarek, M.Sc., teaches cybersecurity at the Faculty of Information and Communication Technology and also works as a manager and consultant. After work, he becomes an artist known as McKey, a fan of electronic music. Not only does he perform, but he also designs and builds his own synthesizers and generates sounds using electrical discharges. He is the next protagonist of the #JestemzWIT#JestemzPWr series.

Marcin Kaczmarek, M.Sc. from the Department of ICT and Telecommunications graduated from the Faculty of Electronics at our University and later co-created the Cybersecurity programme at our Faculty. He delivers original courses. For years, he has been educating students who “want to protect the digital world.” Professionally, he keeps his feet firmly on the ground, but privately he remains loyal to music.

“Our world is a strange place”

– Music has been my passion since I was four years old. I started with classical instruments, but everything changed when I visited Czesław Niemen’s studio. When I saw synthesizers and organs, all those whistles and hisses captured my imagination. I knew this was my world – the world of electronic sounds – says the scientist.

After that visit to Niemen’s studio, the piano he had at home was pushed aside and he began persuading his parents to buy him some electronic instrument – something almost impossible to obtain at the time. The future scientist and artist realised that to have such an instrument, he had to rely on himself and build it according to designs published in the Radioelektronik magazine. Thanks to his skills and dreams, he won the Technical Knowledge Olympiad at the city level.

Electronics engineer, musician, experimenter and constructor

Kaczmarek, as a student, discontinued his formal music education in favour of electronics. – The foundations of musical education combined with electronics made me an electronic musician – says our scientist. He emphasises, however, that he is an electronics engineer through and through: integrated circuits, transistors, resistors, and capacitors hold no secrets for him. As part of his diploma work at technical school, together with a colleague, he built his own synthesizer.

To this day, he continues to construct instruments and combine passion with technical knowledge. Although he uses ready-made instruments, he derives the greatest satisfaction from creating sound “from scratch”: from generators, filters, and amplifiers. The musician-scientist has also created his own home music studio combined with an electronics workshop, where he designs and builds.

– The sound layer is the most important aspect for me. There are no limits here. The sound can be exactly the way I “dial it in” – he adds.

His music is broadly defined as electronica, strongly rooted in classical sound, yet often venturing into experimentation, sonorism, and unconventional forms. The artists who inspired him the most are absolute legends of the genre: Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Isao Tomita, Giorgio Moroder, the German group Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Ashra-Temple, Mario Schönwälder, and Harald Grosskopf. Marcin Kaczmarek has met most of them and spoken personally with many. He also had the opportunity to meet synthesizer pioneer Robert A. Moog and the father of the MIDI standard, Dave Smith.

Since 2017, McKey has been a regular attendee of the Superbooth festival in Berlin, the largest European event dedicated to electronic music and synthesizer designers. Thanks to this, he has had the opportunity to meet creators he deeply respects.

High-voltage music and drawing with sound

As he passionately explains, his music goes beyond classical performance. He explores sound, searches for its boundaries, and uses technology in ways that many perceive as futuristic curiosities. He creates music using electrical discharges, so-called singing Tesla coils or plasma speakers.

He is also involved in cymatics, the art of drawing shapes and geometric figures using sound waves. – You can even create three-dimensional shapes. And I modulate the sound using a theremin – an instrument played with gestures, without touch – he explains. He presents these unusual experiments, among others, at science festivals.

Concerts, albums, and collaboration

McKey has performed live many times, presenting his music at events such as Days of Fantasy, Polcon 2012, Military Fantasy Days, the U-275 Festival in Uraz, and Underwater Wrocław. He has released three original albums: “Harmony of the Cosmos I,” “Harmony of the Cosmos II,” and “Earth 2021.” As he says himself, these are niche releases, but full of passion. He creates primarily for himself, but if someone enjoys his music, it brings him additional joy.

– I find fulfilment in what I do. And if it can be shown to others and inspire them with passion, all the better. My biggest problem is not a lack of ideas or equipment, but a lack of time – notes the musician from WIT.

You can listen to Marcin Kaczmarek’s music online.