Elizabeth Vander Zaag was born in Alliston, Ontario. She relocated to Vancouver, British Columbia in 1974 where she continued working in video after creating a cable television show at the University of Western Ontario where she graduated with a BA in 1973.

In 2007 she completed her masters degree at the University of British Columbia in Interdisciplinary Studies, combining research in linguistics and HCI to further her understanding of the academic context of her interactive speech installations. As part of her graduate thesis she produced an interactive video installation entitled Speaking Mother Tongues.

Recent exhibitions have primarily featured early videos. The Digit series from the 70’s was shown in the Gina Show retrospective at the Or Gallery, 2010, and at the Video In and the Surrey Art Gallery, 2009. A major retrospective of her digital work was exhibited at Video In in 2006 by On Edge Productions.

Elizabeth’s work in early digital sensibilities and technologies are her main contributions to the video medium. She has won numerous awards and exhibited in Asia, Australia, South America, Europe and North America. Her interactive speech installation entitled Talk Nice was produced at the Banff Centre in 2000 and pioneered the agency of emotion in interactive work.

Her early CD-ROM, Whispering Pines, was produced as a Director project in the mid 90’s and is almost impossible to view unless an old Mac is obtained. As our storage mediums change more and more quickly it is quite possible that at some time in the future her work will only exist at her distributors, Video Out and V-Tape.

Elizabeth is currently not represented by a gallery. A current project, entitled Home, is her first project in HD technology and is a non interactive poem.

Artist Code: 001