In response to the recent economic disaster he founded Lower Manhattan Arts League, a grassroots advocacy group formed to find solutions to the severe problems brought on by the current recession.

 

Since 1994 Cunningham has focused on the creation of his own large-scale, live, multimedia performance/installation works and on the development of affordable intuitive technology for multiplexing and seamless multi media interaction.  Works include: House of Bugs (Ontological Theater), The Realism of Simple Machines, (La Mama), Automatic Earth (Signature Theater), Kampuchea/Loisaida, (3LD Desbrosses Street), Accidental Records (Venice Biennale, 9th and 11th Annual Architecture Exhibits), Degeneracy, Losing Something (2007 Hewes Design Award, Prague Quadrennial Featured Work), Fire Island (Prague Quadrennial Featured Work), A Line of You and Spy Garbo (Drama Desk 2011 nominee) at 3LD Art & Technology Center. He also showed a retrospective of his large-scale video and interactive work called Why Aren’t You Naked? In 2009. He is currently working on a new collaboration with Chuck Mee: Paris Orgy, the design for which will focus on a fully immersive 3-Dimensional HD video surround. He shot interiors for Paris Orgy in the winter of 2010 and will lead a comprehensive development workshop at 3LD in the summer and fall of 2013.

 

 Recently in response to changes in the nature and quality of American philanthropic support for the arts Cunningham has been accepting commissions for 3-Legged Dog and has completed several of them. His surround video installation done in collaboration with Nathan Crowley for the Costume Institute’s annual exhibition, American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity was seen though Summer 2010 in the Cantor Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He also completed commissions for The American Express Foundation and the National Trust for Historic Places at the Met Museum and at locations throughout New York. He has also completed commissions for Lady Gaga and is working on a wraparound exterior/interior video display system for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture that will bring their video and still archive to the streets of Harlem. Several other large commissions are underway in the U.S., Europe and China and this activity has increased 3-Legged Dog’s earned revenue by nearly 3000% in three years.

 

Cunningham is the author, designer and director of many multidisciplinary artworks and has been working as a professional artist since 1983. In 1990 he moved to New York to help the Blue Man Group mount the original production of Tubes at the Astor Place Theater. Over the last 30 years he has worked continuously as a writer, designer, director, artistic director, curator, or producer for visual art, theater, film, and media artists and companies in New York, Europe and elsewhere. He has worked for many artists and companies in his career focusing on large-scale complex multimedia exhibitions and performances. Some of his clients include, Edward Albee, Sam Sheperd, Richard Foreman, Ron Vawter, Jonathan Demme, Bang on a Can, Lincoln Center, the Metropoltan Museum of Art, Nathan Crowley, The Signature Theatre, The Ontological Theater, The Kitchen, The Lucille Lortel Theater, NEC technology and many others.

 

Cunningham is also the CEO and founder of Shape of Time, 3-Legged Dog’s wholly owned subsidiary consulting and intellectual property company. During the late 1990’s Shape of Time spun off a software company called Wet Electrics. Cunningham led the company as CEO and raised $7.2 million in 18 months to complete development of its chief product, the multiplexing software Production Designer.  Through Shape of Time 3-Legged Dog continues to initiate and participate in innovative design of tools and methods for 21st century creative activities.  Currently our focus is on refining the multiplexing software Isadora, on creating easy affordable methods for fully immersive media experiences and on introducing large-scale 3 dimensional imaging systems like Eyeliner to the art world.

 

Awards and honors include Official Selection of the Sundance Film Festival 2013, two works selected for the USITT American Pavilion at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design, the 2007 American Theater Wing Hewes Design Award for Production Design of Losing Something, residencies at the Edward Albee Foundation’s Barn and The Rockefeller Study And Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy as well as numerous grants and awards.

 

Cunningham frequently contributes to and leads seminars, symposia, selection committees, conferences and working groups including the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council for the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The Edward Albee Foundation (8 years), The Millay Colony, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, and various foundations, artists retreats and service organization committees. He has served on or chaired panels for the International Society for the Performing Arts, The National Association for Media Arts and Culture, and Interdependence Day, CivWorld’s annual international gathering. He has presented keynote addresses at the annual Nordic Arts & Audiences Conference, where, as the only invited U.S. participant, he led working groups addressing the role of new technology and hybrid business models in addressing the effects of the world economic crisis in the arts. He also delivered an address at the 2011 Americans for the Arts Annual Conference and delivered the Keynote address at the Banff Arts Center’s 2012 IDEAS Conference. Finally he presented the opening address this semester to the new graduate class at New York Univerisity’s Interactive Telecommunications Department.

 

His work has been supported by many major private foundations including The Rockefeller Foundation, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, American Express Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and government agencies ranging from the Department of Cultural Affairs in New York to the National Science Foundation.

 

Cunningham received his BFA in Sculpture and Installation Art and his M.A. in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Houston where he studied with Donald Barthelme during the 6 years before his death and with Edward Albee who remains a mentor. Cunningham also did graduate work in linguistics and critical theory at Rice University while in Houston.

 

Cunningham is an avid martial artist and holds Nidan (second degree black belt) rank in Aikido. He is also proficient in Muso Shinden Ryu Iaido, iaijitsu,  juijitsu, jodo, tantojitsu and karate and recently began to study the kobudo weapons system, Katori Shinto Ryu.