Harwood started out as an artist during the 1980s. He was involved with publishing initiatives such as the Working
Press (books by and about working class culture); Underground newspaper (a London-based free newspaper aimed
at promoting and exploiting the uses of new media in culture and society); and books such as Unnatural - techno
theory for a contaminated culture (theoretical positionings on new media). During this time, he produced the first
computer-generated graphic novel, If Comics Mental, and was widely published in graphic journals in the USA,
Canada, Italy and France.
After Harwood had training in new media and learned programming at the end of the 1980s, he was invited to
make a piece of work for Video Positive '95 (an international video art festival in Liverpool). He worked at
Ashworth maximum security hospital in Liverpool where he produced the installation Rehearsal of Memory.
As an educator, he worked on various new media courses at Guildhall University, and advised on numerous other
academic new media initiatives. Disappointed with the state of academic education, Harwood was invited to work
at Artec (London Arts Technology Centre) where he provided innovative training for the long-term unemployed.
It was here that he received his Arts Council funding to produce, re-author and publish, with Artec and ex-trainees,
the CD-ROM version of the Rehearsal of Memory installation. Since then, Harwood has exhibited and spoken at
numerous events, nationally and internationally, in England, France, Austria, Australia, Germany, Canada,
Portugal, Finland, Holland and Norway.