Don Ritter Biography

Don Ritter is a Canadian artist and writer who has worked internationally in the fields of visual, sound and media art since 1988. His interdisciplinary artworks and theoretical writings assimilate digital media with ethics and aesthetics. Most of Ritter’s artworks are large video-sound installations and projections controlled by music, voices or the body gestures of audiences. His recent work includes architectural projections depicting humanity through ancient metaphors, and metal prints resembling road signs that convey issues of morality and sustainability. Ritter is a laureate of the 2024 Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts for Artistic Achievement (Canada).

Ritter has presented exhibitions and performances in 23 countries at venues throughout North America, Europe and Asia, including the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), SITE Santa Fe (USA), Winter Olympics 2010 Cultural Olympiad (Vancouver), Metrònom (Barcelona), Sonambiente Sound Festival/Akademie der Künste (Berlin), Verona Jazz Festival (Italy), Exit Festival (Paris), Ars Electronica Festival (Linz), New Music America (New York City), and the Daegu Culture and Arts Center (South Korea). His most widely exhibited work is Intersection (1993), an immersive-interactive sound installation that has been experienced by over 700,000 persons in eight countries. During his performances of video controlled by live music, Ritter collaborated mostly with trombonist George E. Lewis, and also with musicians Nick Didkovsky, Amy Denio, Thomas Dimuzio, Ikue Mori, Geneviève Letarte, Ben Neill, Trevor Tureski and Tom Walsh. Ritter's work has received support and recognition from the Canada Council for the Arts, The Banff Centre (Canada), Pratt Institute (USA), ZKM (Germany), Ars Electronica (Austria), DGArtes (Portugal), the Goethe Institute (Germany), the European Union Culture Programme (EU), and City University of Hong Kong.

Ritter completed his graduate degree in visual studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center For Advanced Visual Studies, MIT Media Lab, and Harvard University’s film department. His professors included German artist Otto Piene (MIT), documentary film-maker Richard Leacock (MIT), computer scientist Marvin Minsky (MIT), and film theorist Vlada Petric (Harvard). He has undergraduate degrees in fine arts and psychology from the University of Waterloo and a diploma in electronics engineering from NAIT. Prior to his academic positions, Ritter worked as a researcher and telecommunications designer for Northern Telecom/Nortel and Bell-Northern Research in Toronto and Ottawa. He held full-time and tenured professorships in art and design between 1989 and 2017 at Concordia University (Montreal), Pratt Institute (New York City), Hanyang University (Seoul, South Korea), and the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong. Ritter maintained his art studio in Toronto (1988-1989), Montreal (1989-1996, 2017-present), New York City (1996-2005), Berlin (2006-2013), and Hong Kong (2013-2017).

“Don’s early and still ongoing exploration of self-organizing systems, autopoiesis, and AI constitute a potent technological uncanny that transforms software systems into participants and co-creators, in ways that even the most recent forays into machine learning have still not quite attained.”
   George E. Lewis FBA, Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music, Columbia University

"Ritter's play with his viewers' phobias recalls the anxiety-provoking tendencies of Surrealism."
   Dottie Indyke, ARTnews, NYC, USA

"The shock of waking up suddenly from amnesia is painful, which explains, perhaps, the psychological dislocation of perception provoked by Ritter’s art. An artistic counter-strategy of psychological dislocation for the body numbed by the invisible blows of technology."
   Arthur Kroker, The Will to Technology and the Culture of Nihilism: Heidegger, Nietzsche & Marx

“To enter an installation by artist Don Ritter is to become an active participant in a technological emulation of a tangible and somewhat familiar experience. Ritter’s installation places the audience in the active position of accomplice, making it as much a part of the medium as the technological supports that make the installation work.” Laura Heon, Director, SITE Santa Fe

“Don Ritter’s interactive installations are concerned with human behaviour. Ritter acts like a researcher demonstrating his ideas through experiments. But the viewer cannot step back and watch others behave, s/he is directly involved in the situation being created. The meaning of the work is conveyed through the viewer’s immediate personal experience.”
   Lilet Breddels, Archis, Amsterdam

"His imagery incorporates old love of surrealism on the one hand and fascination with several generations of technology on the other hand, highlighted by flashes of humor and spiced by emanations of angst."
   Otto Piene, artist, Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"Although Ritter uses complex technologies to create aesthetic experiences for audiences, he is not a technocrat; for him the interaction is not the aim but the means to test the influences and impacts of nature, machines and media to human personality."
   Jozef Cseres, curator/writer, Profil Contemporary Art Magazine, Slovakia