Arise Robot Minds (v1.2)

After receiving my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 1981, I chose not to pursue a master’s degree. My choice not to continue my formal education in the arts arose from the idea that life would act as my art teacher and it would mentor me to my mastering of my art practice. SAIC hired me anyway (without an advanced degree) and I began to teach there as an Instructional Technician in their video art department known at that time as the Video Area. The SAIC Video Area in the 1980s was a unique place. Founded by artist Philip Lee Morton, it provided students with two relatively new and very exciting media for artistic exploration: video synthesis and digital computers.

Chicago’s home grown video art movement was based around the Daniel J. Sandin Analogue Image Processor (IP) and Thomas A. DeFanti’s digital computer innovations. I became intimately involved with these technologies because one of my tasks as an employee of the SAIC Video Area was to maintain and upgrade the equipment. Our faculty, students and I made many works of experimental video art during those years.

I began working on collage video art mixed with image processing. I made works based on a theory I named “Video I Ching” (since shortened to V-Ching) where I would record material from TV and collect sequences from movies and TV distributed on VHS tapes. I would run these collected sequences through a technical process whereby the scenes would mix together randomly. I would then edit a “narrative” from what I found the most interesting and intriguing composites. I made many experimental works based on this aesthetic method. "History of the Moon" and "Electromagnetic Fields Forever" represent two examples. V-Ching still informs my art making.

Another project I worked on quite a bit during my time at SAIC was a role-playing game based on Dr. Timothy Leary's theories on the future evolution of the human nervous system. With the working titles of "Black Wholes and Blobs" and "Destiny," I was unfortunately not able to bring the game to complete fruition. I'd like to find time to finally finish this project.

After leaving SAIC in the mid 1990s I took up with a Chicago company called Rising Star, a creative computer technology reseller. Some of the people at Rising Star would become creative collaborators. They included John Steven Keith, Barbara Ann Perry, John S. Banks, Jesse Keeler, Steve Perry. It was also at Rising Star I met my art-life partner Patricia Ann Happel. Under the guise of our company Cyberscope Wizards, my wife Trish and I would create what I like to call stealth enlightenment programming. I signed up as a producer at the Chicago Access Network (CAN) and we created the experimental television series "Abductions with the Alter Boy." This CAN television program has been featured in the documentary film "Access Nation." The series is now available on Amazon and Vimeo On Demand. After Rising Star I continued my experimental video art and worked as a freelance cinematographer, video editor, motion graphics artist, sound designer.

We’re currently working on more experimental TV and movie projects (like "Robots and Reptiles Theater," "The Devil’s Lantern," "Psychedelic Frankenstein"). In addition, every spring the Cyberscope Wizards host a celebration of art, electricity, chaos. We unleash our primal spirits, videotaping our performances and the transformative recycling of outmoded technology into high-voltage excitement. We call it Cybernalia.