Nell Tenhaaf is an electronic media artist living in Trent Hills, Ontario. Born in Oshawa, she has also lived in Montreal, Pittsburgh and Toronto. Tenhaaf’s artworks integrate elements from the biosciences and Artificial Life in the form of lightbox displays and interactive sculptures. A survey exhibition of fifteen years of her work entitled Fit/Unfit was shown in several Canadian venues between 2003 and 2008, and she has also shown in Spain, Hungary, Germany, Sweden, and the USA.
In the early 1980s Tenhaaf made pioneering artworks using the Telidon videotex protocol for interactive graphics and text, including public access to her databases via experimental telecommunication networks in Montreal. Her works from the late 1980s through the 1990s are known for their feminist commentary on biotechnology and genetics, presenting these as practices that only complicate how human nature is hybridized and imperfect. Later works represent some of the complex dynamics of life and involve the viewer as one element in a continuous flux, from WinWin (2012) back to the touch-activated video installation UCBM (You could be me) (1999). Tenhaaf collaborates with sound artist John Kamevaar, computer science researcher Melanie Baljko and electronics artist Nick Stedman.
Permanent collections include the National Gallery of Canada, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, ON, The Glenbow Museum, Calgary, AB, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Pret d’oeuvres d’art), the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal, and the Canada Council Art Bank.
Tenhaaf has published numerous reviews and articles, and was jury chair for the VIDA art and artificial life competition in Madrid from 1999 to 2014. She is Professor Emerita at York University in Toronto.
