Monday 27 June 2011

DIGITAL NIGHTMARES PARTS 1-3

Not long after we'd moved into unit 65 Pall Mall Deposit I started these pieces entitled 'Digital Nightmares'. It was a gut reaction to the continued problems we were having with digital technology in general and in some ways almost an emotional cry for help ! Back in Coronet St from 1989 onwards we'd stored all our data on 3.5 inch floppy disks. Well before photoshop and scanning you could literally fit a complete magazine and several record sleeves designs in 1.4 megs of data! yes true. I had a plastic box full of the things, even font disks, back up disks, software everything came on a floppy! After a year or two after one fate full day popping the floppy in the drive waiting for it it to mount onto the desktop and hey presto - nothing ! yes it turns out floppy's only have a life span of about 2 years. Consequently I had tons of these things with much valued back up on - as good as ready for the bin! As the technology got better and the advent of Photoshop and scanners (about '93/'94) jobs where sent off on 44mb and 88mb Syquest Disks. Again we used them as back up and again realized some time later that they too had a limited life span and they cost a bloody fortune. My frustration with all this led me to do these pieces - now I wouldn't really call them 'Art' but in a funny kinda way looking back they are. Moving swiftly to 2011-  maybe my next pieces will feature Lacie Hard drives as I've had two of 'em collapse on me in the last year ! my complete back up for the year 2006 completely gone - The Digital nightmares continue!

'Digital Nightmares Part 1' 3.5inch Floppy Disks (with data!) and spraypaint mounted on wood 

'Digital Nightmares Part 2' - 44mb and 88mb Syquest Disks and spraypaint mounted on wood

'Digital Nightmares Part 3' 3My old Quadra 700 Apple Macintosh, which was stolen in a burglary at 41 Coronet St, and dropped from the third floor by the burglar - it smashed through a skylight on the ground floor next door .
The hard drive and data were recovered but alas the mac was done for!  These 3 pieces where shown at the TypoBerlin conference 1996 were I lectured too! the theme for the lecture was the same 'Digital nightmares'