Before moving from Brazil to the United States in the late 1980s, Kac began creating his first telematic artworks that used electronic technologies to bridge two or more physical locations. During the 1990s he continued to produce these works, at the same time as he coined the phrase "bioart". In addition to "bioart" Kac coined numerous neologisms to describe his transdisciplinary art practice, including "holoart", "transgenic art" (the integration of human genes in an artwork) and "plantimal", referring to a plant infused with human genes.