The Portable Effects project was initiated in 1989 by architect/videographer Rachel Strickland and educator Doreen Nelson, with the support of Apple Computer. In 1993 the National Endowment for the Arts awarded a grant to seed the development of an interactive video database for introducing principles of design practice through the Portable Effects material. The work unfolded subsequently under the direction of Rachel Strickland, as a research project of Interval Research Corporation, with the collaboration of the Exploratorium. The Portable Effects exhibit was produced in 1996.

The Exploratorium is a museum of science, art, and human perception located in San Francisco, CA. It was founded in 1969 by Dr. Frank Oppenheimer. The Exploratorium encourages individualized learning through direct personal experience. Its programs and exhibits are designed for people of all ages and backgrounds.

Interval Research Corporation, founded in 1992 by David Liddle and Paul Allen, was a Palo Alto laboratory that conducted research and advanced development. Interval's purpose was to discover and invent new approaches for applying information technology to the everyday life of individuals.

Rachel Strickland describes herself as an architect who practices in motion picture media more than pencil and paper. Her work of the past 25 years has focused on cinematic dimensions of the sense of place, and new paradigms for narrative construction in digital media. Strickland earned a Master of Architecture degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a concentration in cinema verite filmmaking. She has taught film and video production at MIT, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Southern California Institute of Architecture. Formerly employed as a research videographer at Atari and Apple, she has directed experimental cinema projects at Interval Research Corporation for the past seven years. She has held artist residencies at Banff Centre for the Arts and the San Francisco Exploratorium. Her work has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and Ars Electronica.