Travis Winn was born in Washington State. Growing up, he was surrounded by artists. His first job at the age of twelve was on Bainbridge Island pulling serigraphs, embossing prints and cleaning silk-screens. He spent most of his formative years in Seattle. Graduating from the University of Washington cum laude with a degree in International Studies, Winn went on to work as a photographer for The Stranger, a user interface designer at Getty Images, and contracted at Microsoft as an html programmer/visual designer. In 2002, the artist moved to Los Angeles and began working as a designer and photographer at an art gallery on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.
An avid traveler, Winn has traveled to 35 countries, sometimes staying long stints at a time, including Europe, South America, Central America, India, Russia, Greece, Turkey, and extensively in Mexico. Winn purchased one of the first ultra tiny Mini-DV cameras in 1997 to document the spiritual places, people, movements and dance he saw around the world and by now has filmed in 21 countries.
His digital obsession began in 1989 when he purchased his first computer - a Commodore Amiga. Fast forward to 1998, Winn began VJing using mostly his own footage - shot and remixed. He has done visuals in Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Paris and Mexico. He has also had several video exhibits starting in 2000 at different art galleries around Seattle. In 2004, his short-form documentary Do You Believe? Another World Is Possible was shot at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India. It played at a symposium at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and then premiered at the Artivist Film Festival at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, California in 2005. His first solo exhibition was at William Traver Gallery in Seattle in 2000.
"The infinite wisdom of fractals is found throughout the universe - in shells, ferns, coastlines, etc. By mixing their digital mathematical equations with actual existing patterns photographed in binary format, I feel a connection to the analog space at a deeper level. A sort of twisted memory results; a dreamlike interpretation of a fraction of a second on another continent is relived in the ether, in silicon, and then re-interpreted and put onto paper. Working the images over and over again in a sort of Dadaesque, random, anarchist and anti-logic-like fashion, they magically appear, reappear and then come up again on multiple layers. Sort of like dreams - like the connections within the synapses throughout our brains - they form a life of their own." Travis Winn
