I’m an Award Winning Creative Director & Technologist / Web Audio & Music Technology Pioneer / Community Builder / Speaker & Author who loves prototyping the future, but not so much a fan of talking about myself and writing pages like this ; ) So here we go….

As a pioneer of the early Web, I placed myself at the intersection of technology, creativity, and community, with a focus on technology's power to amplify human creativity and foster genuine connectivity.

I’ve spent decades giving millions of people music-making superpowers.

I pioneered online audio, creating Looplabs, the web’s first online music creation platform, revolutionizing interactive audio, social music creation and remixing, receiving recognition from Steve Jobs, SxSW, and the prestigious Webby Awards. I’ve designed innovative interfaces, experiences, and installations, presented at global conferences, and published books on the intersection of technology and art.

As a community builder, I’ve built online communities amassing millions of members, organized global (un)conferences, TEDxYouth events, and launched national festivals in Canada (FITC) and Australia (_SOUTHSTART).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT1KPNfjDac

_SOUTHSTART 2024 Festival Highlights

Currently, I’m deep down the rabbit hole of Generative AI exploring image, sound, and video creation looking to leverage my decades of experience crafting simple, fun, and powerful creation tools for this next generation of possibilities with AI. ( hit me up if this is your jam )

https://vimeo.com/1074522711?share=copy

Check out what I’m doing **now.

Here’s some art.**

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A bit more….

I was a preteen SYSOP playing with light pens and running a BBS in the 80s, and dropped out of university when exposed to the birth of the web in the early 90s, hanging out on telnet chats and cutting my teeth building music websites for bands as part of the Canadian Music Exchange (Canada's IUMA).

In the mid-1990s, pre-Google, I founded **CRASH!**MEDIA, an award-winning Research & Design Studio dedicated to pioneering interactive developments during the web's early days. In 2000 we received international attention, receiving SxSW's International Design Award for developing the first drag-and-drop interface on a website.

Craig Swann’s CRASH!MEDIA presented a feature that would become a standard part of our lives in the future, dragging images and dropping them into a box area in order to access extra content. Such simplicity offered a significant new means of navigating, and paved the way for countless interfaces not least for shopping carts.

• Rob Ford - Founder FWA / The Evolution of the Digital World 1990-Today / TASCHEN

Web Audio Innovator

In 2000, Looplabs, the Web's first music creation platform was born. Years before Tim O'Reilly popularized the term “Web 2.0," Looplabs was democratizing music creation, allowing anyone with an internet connection to create, share, and remix music directly from their web browsers.

The viral impact and innovation of Looplabs was recognized by the Webby Awards and personally showcased by Steve Jobs at the launch of the Safari browser, marking its significance at the dawn of the read/write web.