Graham Smith (artist and inventor)


Graham Smith is an artist, inventor and educator based in Germany, Canada and the Netherlands. He has exhibited internationally for the last 25 years.

Early life

Smith was born in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1958.

Education

1977-1979 Langara College, Vancouver, British Columbia
1979-1983 Associate of the Ontario College of Art, Toronto, Ontario

Themes

Robotic, virtual reality, photographic and telepresence media.

Projects

1993 to 1995
1988.
Smith directed the VRAAP program at the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto.
2001
1 of 9 invited artists involved in the groundbreaking "Liveform Telekinetics" project that linked Interaccess in Toronto with the WAAG new media centre in Amsterdam with telepresence media.
2007
Smith was the only artist in the international Dutch Electronic Art Festival to display 2 large scale works, "MOBI" and "Morphing Machinery" and is one of the founders of the German art collective Cybercity Ruhr which is currently developing “The Third Eye" telepresence exhibition for the European Capital of Culture that will take place in the Ruhr area of Germany in 2010.
Current
An interactive video mural of the Berlin Wall called “Intersection”. Smith's "Intersections Though Time- Berlin Wall '88", consists of three multi-image panoramas, one of which is made up of 600 Polaroid photos. In 2009 he returned to Berlin to create a second piece of the artwork. Documenting the same location, Check Point Charlie but instead using digital cameras creating a 360-degree repeating panoramic view spiraling through time and space.
The "Emoti-chair", a 3-year research project with Ryerson University to develop a way to simulate the effect of sound in movies for deaf people using a combination of non audio sensory inputs.
“Liberation”, an art piece that will allow audiences the ability to experience the sensation of being weightless in orbit around the earth by projecting video to people who are underwater wearing scuba masks and snorkels.

Teaching

2004-08 Utrecht School of the Arts, Industrial Design and Robotics, Utrecht, Netherlands
2004-08 Willem de Kooning Academie, Interaction and Multi Media, Rotterdam, Netherlands
2006-07 Hanze University Groningen, Frank Mohr Institute, Masters Program, Groningen, NL
1997-98 Avondale Alternative School, Robots and Art, Toronto, Ontario
1993-95 University of Toronto, McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, Toronto, Ontario