I studied at the Ontario College of Art with Norman T. White and others from 1984-1987, where I worked to create my own electronic circuit boards and microprocessor systems to control interactive works with video, sound and mechanics. The first time I went “online” was with my amateur packet radio station, and I also participated in early Telecommunications Art projects such as White’s “Hearsay” using the I.P. Sharp network.


After receiving my diploma, I worked with InterAccess, a non-profit artist-run centre in Toronto, to establish the world's first public-access UNIX server dedicated to telecommunications art and artists, called Matrix. From 1988-1992 I led the project, including the design and programming of the user interface for the system, which featured international e-mail and Usenet, interactive online artworks, and full-colour graphical pages by artists - six years before the invention of the World Wide Web!


During this time I also collaborated with Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz and their Electronic Café International network - the origin of the "Internet Café" concept - organizing and performing in various live telecommunications art exchanges worldwide. Some of these were presented at my own gallery of electric art called CurrentWorks in Toronto, along with my continuing work in interactive/kinetic sculpture, video art, and electronic music. This video clip is from a live analog “vidphone” exchange called “Transcontinental Jam” between the Western Front in Vancouver, and Studio X in Toronto in 1991. Hank Bull is explaining the technique of cycling through slowscan stills to create an animated performance.


In 1993 I was hired by Sara Diamond of the Banff Centre to help start their new network art programme. In addition to supporting the artists for the first-ever network art produced at Banff, I was responsible for the design and installation of the original campus-wide Internet connectivity for the Centre. In 1994 I was artist-in-residence at the Western Front in Vancouver, where I used low-power "pirate" television transmitters and ISDN videoconferencing to create a live online and open-source video-mixing network called TV Freenet. It would be nearly ten years before systems such as Waag Society's Keyworx technology, Bittorrent, and YouTube made this vision a reality on the Internet today.

 

telecommunications art & other early works