Don Ritter Visual, Sound and Media Artist
Montréal, Quebec

Don Ritter is a visual, sound and media artist. His works of art merge aesthetics, ethics and digital media into architectural projections, immersive video-sound installations, performances and prints. Ritter has exhibited internationally since 1988 at museums, festivals and galleries in 23 countries, including SITE Santa Fe, the New York Coliseum (in New York City), the 2010 Winter Olympics (in Vancouver), Metrònom (in Barcelona), Sonambiente/Akademie der Künste (in Berlin), Exit Festival (in Paris), Ars Electronica Festival (in Linz), and the Daegu Culture and Arts Center (in South Korea). His work has received support from the Banff Centre, the Canada Council for the Arts, ZKM (Germany), the Goethe Institute (Germany), DGArts (Portugal), Ars Electronica (Austria) and the European Union Culture Programme (EU). Ritter’s interdisciplinary artwork and theoretical writings evolved from his professional experience and education in fine arts, electronics engineering, psychology and visual studies (MIT, Harvard). Ritter worked abroad for 23 years as an artist and academic in Boston, New York City, Berlin, Seoul and Hong Kong. He currently lives in Montréal, Quebec.

Don Ritter’s website

“Don Ritter has [produced] works for over three decades that combine fine art, digital media, programming and psychology. […] While his interactive projections are concerned with questions about the person in a technological environment, another stream of his work demonstrates a keen questioning of moral issues in human affairs. […] Ritter’s extensive and international experience in creating, exhibiting, teaching and writing about media art has contributed to a tremendous advancement of new media arts in Canada and abroad.” 

Nominator: Jean Gagnon (PhD), independent art critic and curator 

“[Ritter’s] work demonstrates a keen questioning of moral issues in human affairs.”

Selected works

Three panels in red, yellow and green of a man’s face with hands reaching out of his eyes.
A man surrounded by several speakers stands in a dark room in front of a white door.
A person stands at a podium across from a screen featuring several other people.
A black rotary phone whose dial has been replaced by a speaker with a grille sits on black fabric.
A person watches a projection of herself superimposed onto a picture of a historical building.
Several buildings covered in projections of flames.
A photo of a projection of fire on a concrete building.
A photo of a man standing before a large projected image of blue water.
A photo of a projection of fire on a concrete building.
Two people sneak past a projection of fire in a dark room.

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