He has recently served on the visiting committee of the MIT Media Lab, the board of directors of ZERO1, the Scientific Council of the Boltzmann Institute for Media Arts Research, and has been a member of the Society for Visual Anthropology since 1984. Michael has worked extensively with field cinematography, interactive systems, and immersive projection, exploring place representation and its consequences for 25 years. After receiving an undergraduate degree in cybernetic systems, Michael spent the late 1970s at MIT and was on the original design team for the Media Lab. As an independent media artist in the 1980s, he made artworks for the Paris Metro, the Exploratorium, the ZKM, and the Banff Centre.