Video History Project

People

David Rokeby

David Rokeby has won acclaim in both artistic and technical fields for his new media artworks. A pioneer in interactive art and an acknowledged innovator in interactive technologies, Rokeby has achieved international recognition as an artist and seen the technologies which he develops for his work given unique applications by a broad range of arts practitioners and medical scientists. The Toronto artist, who was born in Tillsonburg, Ontario in 1960 and studied at the Ontario College of Art, uses technology to reflect on human issues.

Rokeby's best known work, Very Nervous System (1986-90) premiered at the Venice Biennale in 1996, won the first Petro-Canada Award for Media Arts (1988) and is permanently installed in several museums around the world. The work uses video cameras, computers, and synthesizers to create an interactive space in which body movements are translated into music. The technology Rokeby developed for this work is widely used by composers, choreographers, musicians, and artists. It is also used in music therapy applications and is currently being tested as an activity enabler for victims of Parkinson's Disease.

Several of his works have addressed issues of digital surveillance. Watched and Measured (2000) was awarded the first BAFTA award for interactive art from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Guardian Angel (2001) received the award for best installation at the Images Festival in 2001.

Other works engage in a critical examination of the differences between human and artificial intelligence. The Giver of Names (1991-) and n-cha(n)t (2001) are artificial subjective entities, provoked by objects or spoken words in their immediate environment to formulate sentences and speak them aloud.

Rokeby has twice been honored with Austria's Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction (1991 and 1997). He has been an invited speaker at events around the world, and has published two papers that are required reading in the new media arts faculties of many universities. He recently received a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts.

Cite this record

"David Rokeby." Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2011. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/david-rokeby.

Download RIS citation
Summary

David Rokeby, born in Tillsonburg, Ontario in 1960 and educated at Ontario College of Art, is a Toronto new media artist and pioneer who develops interactive technologies using video cameras, computers and synthesizers. Very Nervous System (1986–90) premiered at the Venice Biennale in 1996, won the first Petro-Canada Award for Media Arts (1988) and is installed in museums worldwide. Watched and Measured (2000) won BAFTA; he received Prix Ars Electronica (1991, 1997), published two papers and received a Governor General's Award.

Submit a change or correction

If unchecked, this will appear as a public note on the site immediately. Spam filters may delay publication, but all submissions are reviewed by staff.

Changes will be reviewed and integrated as time permits. For major changes, feel free to email [email protected].

Last modified 18 June 2011

Related records

  • Motion: An Exhibition of Essentialist Film and Video. The 58th Exhibition of Central New York Artists Bibliography

    Ralph Hocking offers an artist statement for a computer-based installation slated for fall 1999; his listed installation works are Jump, diggit and Running, and he links the project to prior study in pottery. The work uses four to nine monitors, each driven by its own Amiga with one video and two audio outputs and a serial link to a master referee computer; the Amiga provides four oscillators and image and sound sampling, and imagery is altered by digital processing techniques including convolving, bit swapping and field manipulation, producing three-dimensional illusions. The project is part of Motion: The 58th Exhibition of Central New York Artists at the Munson Williams Proctor Institute, October 2, 1999 to January 2, 2000, curated by John Knecht.

  • Tony Weathers People

    Tony Weathers holds an MFA from Cornish College of Arts and served as Technical Assistant to video artist Gary Hill; his exhibitions include Commencement Art Gallery (WA), Schnitt Ausstellungstraum (Germany), Bank of America (WA), SF DRS Television (Germany) and ARTE Television (Germany, France and Switzerland). His awards include an Artist Trust Fellowship and a nomination for Internationaler Medien Kunst Pries at ZKM, Germany.

  • Al Razutis People

    Media Artist and innovator, since 1967, in the areas of film and video, avant-garde film, video art, holographic art, and more recently, stereoscopic 3D video, digital graphics - web media and web-based virtual reality. His films have received a number of awards, including a 1988 Los Angeles Film Cr…

  • Daniel Rozin People

    Daniel Rozin is an artist, educator and developer working in interactive digital art; his installations and sculptures change and respond to the viewer and often incorporate computers that are seldom visible. He is Resident Artist and Visiting Art Professor at ITP, Tisch School Of The Arts, NYU, where he teaches The World- Pixel by Pixel, Project Development Studio and Toy Design Workshop, and he runs Smoothware Design, a software company producing tools for interactive art and multimedia authoring. Born in Jerusalem and trained as an industrial designer, he lives and works in New York; his work has been widely exhibited, featured in The New York Times, Wired, ID, Spectrum and USA Today, and has received awards including Prix Ars Electronica, ID Design Review and the Chrysler Design Award.

  • James Rouvelle People

    James Rouvelle is an artist, inventor and tinkerer who trained in classical music and works with micro-controllers and robotics; his practice integrates scientific methodology (logic, statistics, instrument building) with discourse and presentation. He is Professor of Interactive Media at The Maryland Institute in Baltimore; he has shown at Post in LA and Schmucker Art Center in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and has a commissioned work for ISEA 2006 in San Jose, CA.

  • Jeremy Slater People

    Jeremy D. Slater is a sound artist who also works with video and sound in performance and installation settings; he uses his laptop computer to create sound, image, and interactive work. He was one of the 1999 recipients of the Computer Art Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) and has exhibited and performed nationally and internationally; websites: http://www.jeremyslater.net and http://www.parenthesismedia.com.