Core Memory: The Art of the Machine

Artist's statement: "I am drawn to the mundane, at least to what at first appears mundane. The 'average' is never that to me. While these images depict our machine past they also point towards our future as human and machine intertwine. This visuals mark a moment in history that may be as true a point of departure as the day Gutenberg completed his printing press.

These photographs, I hope, reveal the human in the machine, and the machine in the human. Computers were people once. The word 'computer' comes from the 17th century and refers to a person or group of people who undertake complex mathematical calculations. In my photographs, a similar complexity unfolds from the simple toggle switch as it reveals binary, to hexadecimals, to visual. I try to show the act of creation in fields of switches and rivers of wiring.

It is difficult to say whether these photographs serve as mirrors to the viewer showing us a cousin twice removed, or if they show the aspiration of an earlier time when inventors shaped their hopes for the future and without realizing, gave their designs, hands and eyes and mouth. Conscious or not, a visual parallel between wires delivering energy to mechanical memory and the neural pathways of human anatomy has been shown.. Seeing past specific byte and hard drive and wire, shows vein, nerve and human form. The beauty is both in the machine that shows and exceeds human imagination and, in the end, what a familiar and clearly human product that machine is."

If you would like to see this art exhibit anytime Monday-Friday please send a message to Lisa Fahey, our art program curator.