Billy Klüver was born in Monaco in 1927 , and grew up in Sweden.  He graduated from the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. He worked for one year, 1952-1953 at the TV Development Laboratory, Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston, Paris.

 

He came to the United States in 1954, and received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1957. He served as Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, at the University of California, Berkeley, 1957-58.

 

From 1958 to 1968 he was a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. He has published numerous technical and scientific papers on, among others, small signal power conservation in electron beams, backward-wave magnetron amplifiers and infra-red lasers. He holds 10 patents.

 

In the early 1960s, he  collaborated with artists on works of art incorporating new technology, including Jean Tinguely, Jasper Johns, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage and Andy Warhol. Since 1960 he has given numerous lectures in the U.S. and abroad on both art, art and technology, and social issues to be addressed by the technical community; and he has published articles on these subjects. Has curated or been curatorial adviser for fourteen major museum exhibitions in the United States and Europe.

 

1968 he became president of Experiments in Art and Technology, a position he held until his death in 2004.

1974 he received the Royal Order of Vasa, Sweden.

1998 he received an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design of the New School for Social Research.

He also received the Legion d'Honneur