[1] He created several visual art, music, and design software programs, including Lumena, MusicBox, SoftStep, and others.

He was a graduate of Sonia Landy Sheridan's Generative Systems program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

[2] In 1977,[3] he received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) after completing Sonia Landy Sheridan's Generative Systems program.

[3] Also while at SAIC, he began working on a paint software program prototype that later would be expanded into SlideMaster, then EASEL and Lumena.

[16][17] In the 1990s, Dunn founded Algorithmic Arts, an online company that primarily produces electronic music software.

[18] He released a variety of software programs in the 1990s and early 2000s, including the Kinetic Music Machine, SoftStep, BankStep, and ArtWonk, all of which incorporated details of visual art and design.

[25][26] The two later rendered music from the DNA of vampire bats, sea urchins, slime molds, and the human sex hormone.