(Hons) in Fine Art in 1983, before graduating with a master's degree in Environmental Media at the Royal College of Art in London.Although Piper’s early and student work made use of traditional fine art media such as paint and canvas (such as "The Body Politic", 1983), from the late 1980s he became primarily associated with technically innovative work that explored multi-media elements such as computer software, websites, tape/slide, sound and video within an installation-based practice.