| Dave Jones is a video artist and engineer who has been involved in the video art field since 1971, and has been developing image making tools almost as long. A couple of months after graduating high school he was helping to run a mixed-media performance troupe in Europe. The troupe, known as VideoHeads, performed shows that combined video, film, music, and theater. These shows were performed throughout western Europe in the early 1970's.
After moving to New York state in 1973, he designed, built, modified, and/or repaired video equipment for artists and organizations such as Shirley Clark, VideoFreex, and The Experimental
Television Center. After being hired by The Experimental Television Center to repair video equipment in their studio, Dave also started designing and building video tools for them. Over the next few years he designed a series of tools for video image processing to be used at E.T.C. by a number of video artists. These tools were analog signal processing designs with control voltage patching that gave the machines added power and capabilities. He was also involved in video performances and installations at E.T.C. and several museums around the state of New York.
During the late 1970's Dave continued designing analog imaging tools and started designing the first of many digital imaging machines. He designed systems for artists such as Gary Hill and Ralph Hocking. The early 1980's were spent working both in industry and the arts. For companies such as Singer-Link Simulators, G.E. Aerospace, and Cornell University, he built video-to-film recorders for aircraft and medical uses, video displays for aircraft cockpits, and small, high speed computers. He also did design work for E.T.C. and individual video artists such as Sara Hornbacher, Shalom Gorewitz, and Peer Bode including video frame buffers, keyers, colorizers, and audio processing. This engineering was balanced with video tapes and performances in several Avant Garde Festivals. Mr. Jones continued to design both digital and analog video tools during the rest of the 1980's. He also wrote software and designed hardware for the Amiga computer during the end of the 1980's.
The beginning of the '90s has been spent providing technical support and custom hardware and software for installation artists such as Gary Hill, Nam June Paik, Shu Lea Cheang, Stan Douglas, Dan Graham, Diana Thater, Beth B., Judith Barry, and others. Some of his machines were used in the production of the 1993 movie "Sliver" and have been used in art installations in some of the largest art festivals and contemporary art museums around the world.
Image processing tools designed by Dave Jones are in artists studios around the world as well as the studios of several schools. Over the years Mr. Jones has become known for innovative and powerful video tools that let an artist explore the video signal. He has been recognized for his designs by being mentioned in Grollier's Academic American Encyclopedia and Software Toolworks' CD-ROM Encyclopedia under "Video Art".
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