My passion has always been to mix media. It was with combining painting, photography, and drawing with installation, that I achieved a 1st class honors degree in Fine Art at Newcastle University.

After moving to London, I took an interest in computers as a tool to manipulate my photography. It was then that new media began to intrigue me. Although I was skeptical about the creative potential of interactivity, I was curious to explore it further. I enrolled on an MA course in design for interactive media at Middlesex University.

One of the earlier projects we were set was to design a game. At first this did not appeal to me; I have always been interested in expressing emotion rather that blowing up aliens. But then it occurred to me, why not create a game where emotion was an integral part? It was then that a big door opened in my mind and ideas came flooding out. I felt I had discovered a new dimension, and that I had finally found my medium.

I did an interactive self portrait called 'me', where you had to gain my trust and please a digital version of me to find out more. I realized that if one could engage the player on an emotional level through interaction (as we do with each other in everyday life) then one is likely to get much more from the experience.

I then worked on interactive postcards, the objective of which was to explore interaction in a series of mini-projects. 'Electronic Postcards' seemed an ideal container for the ideas as well as a perfect method of binding the work together. Each postcard was small enough to fit self running on a floppy disk. Stamps were directly applied to the disks and posted to the tutor's home address for assessment.

I then moved to Bath to work for Peter Gabriel's Real World where I worked on various multimedia projects. One of the first things I did for them was an interactive Christmas card (make sure your sound is turned up and click here to play it.) This was also put on floppy disks and sent to Real World's friends and clients.

I was soon appointed the creative director and chief designer of Ceremony of Innocence, an interactive CD-ROM based on Nick Bantock's Griffin and Sabine trilogy. It is a mysterious story of love at the edge of sanity, told through the intense and intimate correspondence of Griffin, a young artist from London, and his enigmatic South Sea Island muse, Sabine. Please click here for more details on Ceremony of Innocence.

I then went on to complete a year's artist in residence at CREATEC (Ealing Studios), a new media lab which was a research branch of the National Film &Television School.

Afterwards, I moved to Brighton to work as an independent artist on my own projects. Dreamer and its' sister project, The Hive, are presently in development stage. Dreamer is a game with a difference. The whole piece will function on the basis of high action and emotional drama, of which the player will be either be responsible for, or at least involved in. It takes place inside the head a man who mysteriously fallen into a deep narcoleptic state. Hive is a multi player environment set in the world of the Dreamer. It pits the two main communities in Max's dream, wasps and butterflies, against each other in an online war. The player will enter and play in the form of one of these insects. For more on Dreamer and The Hive go to http://www.dreamer.org.uk.

 

AWARDS

1994 BIMA AWARDS UK

° Award for the most outstanding work by a student.

OMNI Awards ' 98 USA

° Gold medal in Interactive Entertainment

° Gold medal in Interactive Graphics

EURO PRIX MULTIMEDIA ART ' 98 Austria

° Overall Winner.

NEW MEDIA INVISION AWARDS ' 98 USA

° Gold in General Interest/Adult.

° Award of Excellence in entertainment category, shared with Droidworks From Lucas Learning.

°Best of Show out of all 7 categories, shared with X-Files fromHyperbole Studios.

BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards ' 98 UK

°Moving Images

° Sound

NEW YORK FESTIVAL AWARDS ' 98

° Gold Medal for entertainment category.

° Runner up for the overall prize

EMMA '97 (European Multimedia Awards)

° Winner of the General Interest category: Entertainment and Leisure.

ATOM AWARDS ' 97, Australia

° Gold ATOM - Best Product of the Year.

° Most Creative/Innovative Multimedia Production of the year.

° Best Multimedia Game of the year.

° Most Entertaining Multimedia Production of the year.

AIMIA AWARDS '97, Australia

° Best sound composition & audio editing.

ATLANTIC DIGITAL MEDIA AWARDS ' 97, Canada

° International Award of Excellence.