Burns was born in 1968 and lives in Holyoke, Massachusetts. He received his M.F.A. in video and performance from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1993. Burns and Darrin Martin began their collaborations in the video and sculpture programs at the School of Art and Design at Alfred University where they both received a B.F.A.
Burns creates videotapes, photographs, and installations exploring fictions that include zombie and afterlife relationships, experimental space programs, fictional medical practices, and psychic slapstick/splatstick routines. Burns has several collaborators including Anthony Discenza of HalfLifers, VIROCODE, and The Foundry dance group.