[2] As a result of early exposure to the arts and telecommunications, Brixey adopted an unorthodox attitude toward artmaking during his years spent in higher education.

[citation needed] In a 2016 TEDx talk, Brixey claimed that institute once bussed himself and other classmates 300 miles out to western Kansas as a supposed solution to student boredom and lack of focus.

[3] Brixey attended the graduate program at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1986 to 1988; he is described by MIT as an "environmental artist.

His work rarely takes permanent shape as traditional sculpture or photographs, instead existing as phenomena that are triggered by machines or natural process.

[12] In 2004 Brixey and two DXARTS doctoral students Bret Battey and Ian Ingram received an Editors Choice Award in Popular Science Magazine's "World Design Challenge".

[21] The winning entry was awarded for novel use of feedforward ultrasound technology used to produce wide-field active noise cancellation in underwater environments specifically to protect endangered marine mammals.