Glenn Howarth began working with nascent computer graphics and their artistic potential in 1982. He worked with the NAPLPS graphics language, creating encoded images that were displayed on television monitors via a peripheral known as a Telidon converter.

Microtel Decoder, c.1980s, Glenn Howarth fonds.

In its earliest iterations great things were expected of Telidon, and the Canadian government generously funded Telidon projects. Howarth received a National Research Council grant in 1983, and he represented Canada as curator and Telidon artist in the graphic arts section at the Sao Paulo Biennale that year. As an intensely focused artist who preferred isolation, and was drawn to experimentation, he took to the work. The creation of graphic art images meant a repeated layering of simple shapes arrived at through thousands of commands and keystrokes. Brightly coloured shapes of a simple, garish palette built up on the screen until a completed image appeared. Howarth saw computer graphics as being analogous to how the eye perceives images, and he used the eventual compilation to demonstrate the artistic process.