Firing Line

"Computer Artists are automatically part of an elite."

Reply by
James Wallbank ...who coordinates Redundant Technology Initiative, an organisation that uses obsolete computers to make art. Read their web pages at www.lowtech.org

Redundant Array+Hard Copy is RTI's current installation project, connecting two venues by fax. Redundant Array is open to the public from April 20-25, 10am to 5pm at Unit behind 58 Brown Street, (opposite The Workstation), Sheffield. At the same time Hard Copy is open April 21-25, 10am-5pm at the Gallery of the Future, Epinal Way, Loughborough.

For the project RTI wants your old computers. Bring them to the RTI Collection Point, Sheffield Independent Film, Brown Street, Sheffield or phone (0114) 2495522 to make arrangements.

In the red corner we have artists. Artists get their hands dirty. They work with paint, with plaster, with metal and wood. They're practical bodgers, all round creatives concerned about getting their message across - making work that follows their own unique, personal vision, yet that emerges from what they see around them. They don't have any use for computers and couldn't afford them even if they did.

In the blue corner stand computer artists. Computer artists wear collarless shirts and fashionable sunglasses. They have real jobs in graphic design or IT consultancy. Perhaps they have high-profile sponsorship deals with computer companies. They produce work that's very clever and makes great use of the latest machines. But they seem less concerned about whether what they make is really meaningful, or whether in effect it's just a highbrow computer marketing ploy.

All artists - not just computer artists - should be interested in what's going on right now. And the major event that's changing all our lives is computerisation. If they ignore the sudden and profound effects of the digital revolution then artists will fail to do their jobs and lapse into nostalgic irrelevance. Information technology is not a specialist interest. If you live in this historical period it affects you.

I'm an artist. I get my hands dirty. I work with metal and wood and paint and rivets and computers. To me the term "computer art" seems about as meaningful as the terms "hammer art" or "paintbrush art". My work, and the work of many other contemporary artists, mixes digital and analogue media in new and unauthorised ways.

But how is this way of working possible? Presumably I've got a lucrative sponsorship deal or a high-tech job on the side so that I can afford the necessary computer gear. Not at all - because something strange has happened. Computers aren't expensive any more... they're cheap. In fact, a lot of them are free.

April's Firing Line usually contains some kind of spoof. How's this for some April foolishness? Spring has sprung and the old financial year has come to an end. It's time for businesses to heave their antiquated (four-year-old) computers out of the office and into the skip. Across Britain more than a million will be thrown out this year, just because nobody can think of anything better to do with them.

And meanwhile there are artists who need to get involved with computers if their work is to stay relevant, whose specialist skill is finding creative solutions. They could use surplus information technology in new and unexpected ways, putting the emphasis on meaning and content rather than frenzied technophilia. Wouldn't it be a great idea if...