Michael Schiavello is a practicing artist in electronic art & time based media who was born in Italy, and raised and educated in Australia. Schiavello completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours (First Class) in 2000 and a Masters of Fine Arts in 2006 at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Sydney. He founded Herringbone Gallery in Sydney in 1997, which later became Imperial Slacks (2000-2002).

Schiavello says about first working with video:

“It was an inevitable use of moving image and sound together rather than having only ever worked with still photography previously. I regard video making as just one of the many media available to make comment. At the time I started using video, art schools were upfront and confidently fostering interdisciplinary art practices.”

Of his influences he says:

“Myself as a political body was the biggest influence on my practice and commentary.  Inhabiting the disparity felt between living in a land and living on a land. Texts are the most significant influences in my process of creating images. I collaborated with Tess de Quincey for about 3 years when she spent a lot of time in Central Australia researching explorative and performative modes of the body engaging with terrrain, country, history, climate, temporality among other things. This project was Triple Alice and took place between 1999 and 2001."

Of his involvement with any organizations or artist-run initiatives that dealt with experimental media, he says:

“I found a warehouse in Surry Hills and with Lea Donnan and started Herringbone Gallery in 1997, which was created out of the mailing list from Pendulum Gallery after it had ceased. Over the following five years we expanded and became Imperial Slacks (until 2002) while we lived and worked behind the gallery walls in eight different studios. This project was initiated to accommodate experimental artworks and contemporary expressions without regard to anything except pure research, experimentation, exhibition and discourse. In the meantime we had a lot of fun in what was a fertile ground for cross media collaboration and an exchange of resources. Many of us were students when we met and continued post-graduate work while we ran this initiative.

Imperial Slacks was a site for all kinds of media expression. It supported the works of hundreds of Sydney artists, performers, sound artists over its lifetime. This collective of live-in and "strap-on" artists included: Laura Jordan Bambach, Wade Marynowsky, Emma Price, Léa Donnan, Jessie Cacchillo, Alex Davies, Melody Willis, Monika Tichacek, Chris Fox, Angelica Mesiti, Sean Cordeiro, Claire Healy, Técha Noble, Shaun Gladwell, Simon Cooper, The Kingpins and Marc Dempsey. "

Of his first and latest show he says:

“While being my first video teacher at university, Joyce Hinterding encouraged me to submit a work for an exhibition called EXPERIMENTAL at Artspace in Auckland. I exhibited mainly in Sydney around other Artist Run Initiatives and the few but occasional more celebrated events and international exhibitions.  Over the past fives years, while living in Italy I focused on research rather than exhibition. I will be entering a production phase soon.”