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Vancouver born musician and composer, Bob Turner has reached into cyberspace and found not only a place for himself as a Web Site Content Producer but another medium in which to explore and present his life -long interest in communication and the arts. His extensive personal arts history spans some thirty years, and ranges from promoting and performing in local arts events to touring with noted Jazz groups as a bass violin player to representing Canada at Expo 86 and at Expo 88 in Australia. Bob Turner has composed music for Dance and Theater companies and for performance art -projects; he founded and directed a Theatre -Performance Gallery in Vancouver; and has independently produced several CD's and cassettes of original compositions which he performs on midi-keyboards, flute and bass violin. Bob Turner was Artist in Residence at Simon Fraser University's School of Electronic Engineering during 1989-1991 . There he realized his ideas to empower disabled musicians by directing the designing and development of digital electronic components which gave the disabled musician the possibility of an actual reconnection with making music. Subsequently the midi-modem-midi device was perfected so that musicians who are immobile couldmusically communicate with other musicians in real time from city to city over a telephone link to the digital technology. This was a predecessor to the internet as we know it. He was also instrumental in assembling several performance groups of disabled musicians and recorded and videod their work. In a similar vein Bob Turner turned his efforts towards working with mentally disabled artists by producing music cassettes, publishing poetry, and by establishing a venue to encourage performance integration in an area fraught with cultural bias. This activity has been funded by Primal Mental Health Production Association. Bob Turner’s interest in electronic composition has taken him from the point of assembling a music production and video studio on into the field of multi-media computer technology. In 1995 he and his computer -programmer- partner, Jeff Koftinoff , launched their Internet Filter software to address concerns over issues of censorship and freedom of expression in a world where vigilance is mandatory for those who value an unfettered liberal approach to personal statement and creativity. Bob Turner continues to move in an unlimited realm of ideas in his search to contribute to the community as an artist, and as a facilitator linking the arts with science and technology. turner@turnercom.com |