Once upon a time..

My name is Andrew John Townsend. My friends called me Towny. I call myself “Dman” or “Uncle Towny” if I’m feeling frisky.

Conceived at 576 Brunswick St, I was then born in June of 1982 via a caesarean section after a string of “interesting” circumstances. When they cut me out, I had blonde hair with white tips and was sound asleep.

My first name was taken from the Greek “Andreas” meaning “manly” or “warrior.” The second after working class hero John Lennon. I was raised by my mother – a single parent – who was the sole provider for our family unit.. and when I say unit, I guess I mean duo. She got her Psychology degree, bought a house and supported both of us.. and when I say us, I suppose I mean me. She’s an amazing woman.

The Formative Years

Being raised early around psych students helped to speed up my development with exposure to Freud, Pavlov, Escher, et al. Valuable lessons were learnt quickly… that it is ok to be different, and to try to look at situations from all angles.

Shortly after entering the 1st grade I took my fathers last name, in some roundabout way inheriting a mutated form of the legacy my grandfather Sir Lance Townsend left behind. A world famous gynecologist, he was knighted for his work in dramatically reducing the rate of infant cot death. My other grandfather was an adulterous insurance salesman. Guess which ones genes I hope I got the most of in the Meiosis? I can’t lose either way I guess, they both saw more than their fair share of vaginas.

Hellish coming of Age

Growing up something of a recluse due to a paradigm shift halfway through my childhood, I found an avenue of expression via a slow computer and a dialup modem that my mother was given to mark uni essays for students 200k’s away. I had always drawn a lot in high school, much to the chagrin of my graphics teacher who found a lot of cartridge paper would go missing from the class room. After quitting high school, I began to learn how to create art on comparatively primitive technology by today’s standards..

Finding a new world and community through a modem, a local group of artists led the way to discovering an international scene of teenagers expressing themselves. An unlikely upgrade to a faster computer (think Super Nintendo compared to XBOX360) allowed me to start doing the type of art I was most interested in, 3D.

The Dropout

I spent around 2 years teaching myself how to use programs such as Photoshop and 3D Studio Max (tutorials weren’t readily available back then) and created a lot of mostly experimental works. In the Melbourne scene I managed to collaborate with local music trackers to make videos, websites and other projects that are lost somewhere in an internet archive.

A year or so hiatus due to getting a job and a girlfriend saw me come back into creating after buying a fast computer to play the games of the day, which let me finally get into video editing. My passion at the time was a game called Wolfenstein and I’d use replays from the game to capture funny moments or create tiny music clips showing off micro sync and industrial tunes.

Morbidly Obese, Angry-but-Driven Phase

Creating then gave way to another passion.. teamwork and leadership, which came to life in the form of Team Modus Operandi (MO) which was a gaming organization I founded in 2003. Easily the biggest project I’d undertaken in my lifetime, it saw me travel to compete in Texas in 2005 (the first and only time I’ve left the country to date.) The team ran for 4 years, with me playing, coaching and managing.

Alcoholic Self Destruction Phase

After MO I then found a new adversary.. myself. We all have demons we try to suppress and I delved into that place.. coming out fairly unscathed with the main victims being my pride and the energy of my loved ones, I’ve managed to realign the best parts of my psyche and look forward to my goals and planning how to achieve them..

An unfortunate but sometimes necessary process, the new amalgamation of my personality ended up completely transcending what I used to see as me at my best. Another truth that has come out of what I am now is that it is not easy… The high ground is rough terrain but as long as you’re cantered in yourself, you keep your balance. It doesn’t make it any easier however.

My first paid graphic design project was for the south east centre against sexual assault – a great resource and website for victims and relative alike for a video project entitled “Sexual Assault – It’s Not Ok” – aimed at educating the disabled on the subject. One of the greatest lessons coming out of that is that there is no such thing as “levels” of sexual assault.

People I meet often ask me what I do for a living, as if that somehow defines me. Unfortunately it never captures the extent of who I am, or what I’m capable of.

It’s almost as if you have to be saving starving children whilst playing guitar for Mötley Crüe to really feel comfortable talking about what you do in this day and age… but, in the interests of simplicity, today, I’m largely focusing on my career, working in IT/Leadership and working to express my creativity wherever appropriate (or inappropriate, as it has turned out.)

The Future

Well.. it’s still in the draft phase. My immediate focus is working to accept the fact I’m too old to become a kick-ass Ninja.