Michael Tidmus

Michael Tidmus (1951-2012) was born and raised in Toronto and moved to Los Angeles in the early 1980s. He worked as a creative director, art director, writer, and photographer for advertising and marketing firms. He also worked in printmaking and was part of a network of queer artists, writers, and curators that included Tony Greene, Jeff Beall, and Herb Ritts, with whom he collaborated and exhibited into the early 1990s. 

In 1984, Tidmus began to move away from painting and traditional printmaking to experiment with digital media, despite his self-described technophobia. Tidmus became more involved with AIDS activism at this time and in 1987, Tidmus began to use Apple’s newly released HyperCard software, creating two computer-based projects about AIDS: The AIDS Stack (1987) and Health and Morality: A Desultory Discourse (1988). 

The AIDS Stack is available to view online through the HyperCard Simulator.

Tidmus’s interest in informational distribution and networked community-building, made evident in the HyperCard projects, persisted in his practice and deeply influenced his engagements with AIDS activism and tele-communities. Tidmus became involved in initiatives such as ArtAIDS Link, marking his transition toward web art and net-based practices that remained committed to informational activism as a fundamental response to the AIDS crisis.

Read more about Tidmus in "The Shape of Community: Michael Tidmus's HyperCard Projects and the Early AIDS Crisis" by Helena Shaskevich.