Stephen Bell is an artist and a teacher. His idea of making art is part of a process of orientation. He had heard of artists using computers and TV reports about Cybernetic Serendipity and Edward Ihnatowicz’s Senster, and started using computer technology and programming to make art after being offered a place in the Department of Experimental and Electronic Art at the Slade school of art. His art practise with the computer grew out of previous work and ideas where he had employed randomness using dice to compose sculpture modules. He had started with FORTRAN programs to generate drawings and has since produced a variety of computer plotted drawings, Videos and interactive installations.

He was an artist in residence at the computing laboratory of the of the university of Kent, Canterbury where he developed the core algorithms of the Small world suite of programs.136

His PhD Thesis from 1992 was entitled ‘Participatory Art and Computers: Identifying analysing and composing the characteristics of works of participatory art that use computer technology’.

He has served as a consultant, member of commitees and an external examiner on interactive arts and other digital creativity domains. He has also been a regular contributor of research papers on computer graphics, digital interactivity and the use of computers in art practise at conferences and symposia.

He contributed the chapter ‘My first brush with computer graphics’, in the 2008 publication “White Heat, Cold Logic: British computer arts 1960-80”