Stephen Medaris Bull

Stephen Medaris Bull is an American inventor, mixed-media technologist, and media producer whose work spans experimental mobile media, interactive installation, and practical medical device invention.

He is known for co-creating Cellphonia, a participatory mobile phone opera presented at international arts and technology festivals, for teaching and developing interactive media at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), and for patents ranging from a space station concept to a modern wearable negative pressure ventilator.

His media production credits include the documentary Margaret Sanger: A Public Nuisance, and his mobile and locative works have been supported and exhibited by arts organizations in the United States and abroad.

Education Bull graduated from New York University in 1997.

From the mid-2000s, Bull focused on mobile phone based artworks under the umbrella project Cellphonia, a participatory system that composes and streams audience-contributed vocals captured over telephony. He has worked with institutions such as the New York State Council on the Arts, Experimental Television Center, and Harvestworks.

In response to respiratory-care needs highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bull founded an effort later known as Breathe Global to advance a portable negative pressure ventilator concept called Venti, which was informed by his patent filings and community prototyping.

Research Bull's practice intersects with research in mobile music, ubiquitous computing, and human participation in instrument design, with documentation of his installations and methods in the NIME installation proceedings and in the archival record of ISEA. Subsequent intellectual property disclosures include a 2022 United States patent application for a cuirass-style negative pressure ventilator with reconfigurable components and Internet of Things capabilities.