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A Different Way To Recycle Old PCs
Anonymous Coward writes "Glasgow based artist Sandy Smith has some slightly different suggestions for what to do with those outdated PCs and Apple Macs -- build your home out of them! Photographs of his work; rooms and structures made out of up to 100 (switched-on) computers and other equipment can be seen at computersforart.org/create/;
these should be of interest to anyone who has a habit of collecting old (working)
computers, or just hates the thought of throwing out their old 486 friend."
Glasgow based artist Sandy Smith has some slightly different suggestions for what to do with those outdated PCs and Apple Macs -- build your home out of them!
I'll have to ask my mom if I can build a house in her basement.
Aw, she says I have to bathe first.
BTW, Coral cache mirror, MirrorDot mirror
It looks like my basement.
...if you had a house built of running PCs.
That would be quite an electric bill, though.
Anakin Simpson: If you're not with me, then you're my enemy--ooh, donuts!
What about all the carcinogens?
Imagine a beowolf cluster of these...
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
.. or the study when something's cooking.
But seriously - what to people consider art ? This looks like someone who just piles computers up and plugs them in. Kind of like kindergarten but with stuff only adults can lift.
...her computers don't crash!
Looks at old 486... "And this is my living room"
I think TISM said it best:
"It's novel, it's unique, it's shithouse."
Well, I hope he has a lot of surge protectors.
You must be a ProLiant owner. I installed a blinking red light on the top of mine so airplanes don't hit it.
My living room is a Packard-Bell. I'm not inclined to brag about it. How come something that never worked right in the first place refuses to die?
KFG
Lead is good for you.
BLASPHMY. should have installed linux on it and used it as main desktop.
After looking at the "Untitled (The Sky is Blue)" pictures, I have this strange urge to watch Lain again.... For artwork it's pretty neat, but I can't help thinking "mmmm, radiation".
(\(\
(^v^)
(")")
This is the cute vorpal bunny virus, copy to your sig or runaway, runaway in fear!
...but this is actually kind of gay.
I mean, he hasn't built a house from computers, has he? He's build some room dividers which are about as interesting as piles of dirty laundry. Wake me when he does build a house.
basement-dwelling nerd who has saved every system he's owned since 1980. :)
n dy_smith_07.jpg
http://www.computersforart.org/create/blue/big/sa
Finally we have tge chance to live inside the computer world, literally.
Now where is my long black coat and sleek sunglasses....
Definitions of art:= define%3Aart
http://www.google.nl/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q
That's a lot of definitions. Art is art when 'articians' say it is so.
Authoritarial justification.
Even extreme things, like burning crosses or crossdressed foetusses can be considered art. And before modding me down for this: I do not agree with the examples I just gave.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
I don't know if it's supposed to be pretty or scary.
Pictures like these remind me of how eery a society we live in. It's actually kind of depressing or even scary.
(In an I'm-in-front-of-my-computer-at-4:45AM kind of way)
...it now can compile Gentoo as well as provide shelter from the dreaded sunlight.
be sure to call your power company and explain you want to hook in 50 old useless computers in your room and have them permanently plugged in and turned on. They will shortly have a team of very efficient workers there at your beck and call! (it's true and you know it)
I sell out to The Man every day.
Use it or lose it.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
Amateur Execution.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
...at what can be passed of as 'art' these days. To me this looks like a pile of crappy old apples.
IANAAC (I am not a art critic) but the so-called art in the article is horrible, I wouldn't buy that even to my worst enemy.
Reminds of one guy who builds all his furniture out of computer boxes. unfortionatly I cant find a link for this, otherwise I would provide it. but just to show im not BSing you can see that it was on TV. Ripley's Believe it or not had it on episode 317.. well here is a link, but it only has one pic / database/ep_317a.html>ep317<URL>
Untitled (The Sky is Blue) looks a lot like Darth Vader's throne. Eh?
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Maybe he could spend some of his time learning how to make HTML tables. Or is that *cough* art too.
I wonder how he wired his bathroom to avoid execution when taking a shower.
This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
Hey, I'm an artist! Who knew?
What does this button do...
Foregt about creating a work of art out of old machines. Some of these "creations" look very similar to the desk I actually work on every day.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
I'm thinking that, that arch of vdu's would be great for making an entrance into a computer igloo... now that'd be cool!
My apartment already looks like this. My electric bill is about $700/mo. The neighbors complain about brownouts, and the insane fan noise scares away the women.
:D
So, if I call it "art" I can claim my pad is an art gallery, eh?
I don't know if it's supposed to be pretty or scary.
It's okay. Those things in the picture are called "girls". What you're feeling is natural.
In any case, you're posting on Slashdot at (apparently) 4:45 your time, so they're nothing you'll ever have to worry about.
say, 2000 per house x about 200 watt each.
400 kilowatt power usage, and emission. The "emission" part would be good if you live in Alaska or Antarctic, or so. The "usage" part would be acceptable if you're a millionaire or own a power plant. I've also seen many CRT monitors. a LOT of them, and old ones, when emission wasn't taken into account so much...
Run SETI@Home on it all, and expect the aliens will visit you really soon. Your house will be shining like a radio-beacon in the space.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Seriously... I get headaches some times when I spend too much time around too many turned on computers. I have three at my desk, or four if you count the desk... (Long story, dont ask.)
Seriously... that much screen radiation, buzzing, hot air and electrical interferance just cant be good for... well, anything or anyone.
The arch seems quite interesting, but I'd build it into spherical shape, like an igloo... then place an egg in the middle... switch them all on to display white screen... leave it on for 3 days... then switch everything off, and watch the egg shine in the darkness. Nice x-ray furnace, I'd say :)
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Mac Boxes Make Nice Couches
(Note: this link works correctly as the one above didn't work correctly for me... regards NoKarma)
It's okay. Those things in the picture are called "girls". What you're feeling is natural.
Pfft. Dude, I think I know what girls look like. I do see my mother every once in a while so she can cut my hair.
He should have built a castle, complete with a 20ft tower and battlements. THAT would be cool. and worthy of all our respect.
Speaking which, I have a surplus auction to budget for and some warehouse space to rent...
those spare computer parts in the closet actually construct the very closet they are stored in...
I wonder what his montly electricity fee looks like...
In need of reliable and affordable server monitoring?
I glad an "artist" has found a use for them. God forbid these pieces of art should be used as "monitors" or "computers" by scheming schoolchildren in some evil third-world country.
Art for Arts sake, Money for Gods sake...
Go to the park with a giant tarp and beat the crap out of the computer. It's fun. Trust me.
... and to drive anyone insane because of the noise...
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The people in Hong Kong will thal you very much.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Unless these machines end up in permanent exhibitions, which I guess few will, all you're doing is moving the problem along. The organisation will have to dispose of them eventually.
I note the lack of LCD flat screens in these projects - bet it wont be that way in five years time...
"Recycling", sounds more like a bunch of clunkers wasting of power on processes which could be completed with a mere Transmeta.
Your Momma's so fat she makes emacs look like nano!
Well, Seems like Slashdot is becoming home for post-modern "art" freaks...
Anyway, that's obvious now artists don't know how to use computers.
Achille Talon
Hop!
...a beowulf housing development...
Here's a guy that, unlike them above, owns a computer and no home. For this poor kid, his desktop is the closest to a house he has. http://www.chrisdiclerico.com/mt/archives/001763.p hp
This is not art, it's generated by drones.
These people have no talent, then cannot program them, nor can they make art from them.
IANAA.
reminds me the joke of Microsoft anf Ford. http://atworkandbored.com/jokes-inc/bill_gates_vs_ henry-ford.html
So just connect to it and:
while true; do printf "\a"; sleep 1s; done
In the pic, http://www.computersforart.org/create/blue/big/san dy_smith_07.jpg, how about if all screens got BSOD? It'll surely give me nightmares.
I cant find which mouse is connected this freaking PC.....:-D
Constructed from 16 monitors and 60 computers in a dimly lit round basement space, the circular structure of The Blackhouse faces outwards, yet allows the viewer to look over and into complicated interior.
It's the whole 'dimly lit round basement space' that gets me... I walked past this when it was built a few weeks ago, as I live 2 blocks from the Art School, and not only was it in the floorspace of an empty shop, but it was looking out onto a busy main road. To be perfectly honest, it looked like someone was bored and had arranged a pile of junk computers in a circle. Completely uninspiring and boring. I even told my girlfriend about the 'pile of crap in the shop' and that she shouldn't worry as I won't be asking for any of it. I'm sorry, but I can't see how this passes for 'art'...
A few days ago, i wondered if a wall made out of batteries would stop ionising radiation, since that tends to steal electrons, just like free radicals.
Why did GEAR crush RDP?
dunno why I was getting shocks...
if you take the component out of an old xbox u can live inside it quite comfortably.
Maybe people complement it for its roominess.
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Say, one of those pix reminded me of a cubicle (or is it circumacle). If you aimed all the monitors toward the center and sat there at another, you should definitly be able to establish if those monitors have harmful radiation!
Leave it to people to find new ways to waste electricity in pointless ways. People in the world will eventually have no resources and di...wait... that might not be so bad. Go nerds in basements!
Some of them look like Sun boxes.
No accounting for taste.
Wonder if they're networked.
You can see the image from the webcam in this shot. It isn't a webcam showing "a quiet road passing the Cuillins, in Skye", it's the main road on and off the island. Not very quiet at all (although there aren't any cars in that shot).
I saw a couple of the pictures, and spotted those beige desktop g3s, and some 8600's and stuff. I recently found a full dumpster of those at my school, and I had to bring as many as I could carry home. I also took a huge load of 3com pci cards. Anyway, those are usable computers, at least by the standard of the norwegian school system. Those 50 or so machines just lying there in the dumpster is more way better than what many schools have.
Dvorak on Doomtech
We need at least another 40 or so, I think, to do this in order to say whether EMF causes cancer.
Fire
Hazard.
I think that the creative process is a necessary part of both humour and art.
.... and I probably wouldn't argue with that.
If one creates something and thinks it's art, then it is art. There is an intent involved.
Of course, you could argue that the creation of an image on your retina with a given intent was thus the creation of an artistic work
Other things just happen to be nice to look at or funny. I don't call this art / humour.
doesn't look likely
I think some of this work is quite good. Glasgow has always had a solid artistic community.
was I the only one who read the link as computerfart?
He calls himself an artist, and he doesnt use linux? LONG LIVE TEH GIMP (or whatever i cant think right now)
Your skill in reading has increased by one point!
Good luck with your Heavy metal poisoning soon...
heavy metals?
My home network has a dual 2Ghz G5 (2 x 160Gb drives, 256Mb video card and 3Gb RAM) and 2 Athlon XP 2800+ machines (2 x 160Gb disks, 1Gb RAM and Radeon 9800s) running Fedora 3 and XP Pro. I also have an "old" 1.2Ghz Athlon (2 x 120Gb drives, 768Mb RAM) and and older 600Mhz Athlon lying around doing nothing most of the time. These run Linux and Windows 2003 server. Someone tell me why, when my landlady threw out an old Celeron 333Mhz (32Mb RAM, 4.3Gb disk, broken CD-ROM) I derived immense pleasure loading FreeBSD 5.3 onto it via 2 floppies and a base install via ftp then forwarded port 22 on it to my router before speeding off to my mate's to impress him by SSH-ing into my "new server". It's madess. After the novelty wears off it'll just keep the others company filling-up my tiny studio flat. Hey, wait a minute - IPCop firewall. Now, all I need is 2 more NICs. (Races off to find nearby skip, frothing at the mouth).
If anyone has ever read King's Darktower books...
Some of those photos look like the image I got of the passages down below the City of Lud...when Jake got kidnapped by the Tick-Tock man.... King describes the place as being lined very high with old computers and monitors....
A couple of those shots also kinda' remind me of Doom..... really dark rooms with lit up Tech-walls. But that's just me.
wbs.
Huh?
but does it run Linux?
Damn I should've taken a picture of this shit I took this morning. I splattered on the wall of the toilet in an interesting pattern.
Same goes for those idiots who just splatter paint on walls or canvas, but can't actually paint or draw.
A bunch of talentless, visionless morons trying to make a quick buck from someone with to much money to spend.
Here's a better idea, recycle the fucking things. Turn the circuit boards into clocks, clip boards and other stuff.
this aint true recycling.
eventually, this stuff becomes an eyesore and they throw it away
Running some custom software on the 'art' might make it more interesting ...
...
There are some fun interactive art exhibits that make of use of computers, cameras, and software to engage the viewer
this doesn't look like one of them.
I still enjoy the destruction method: Throwing it off a cliff, Throwing it in a river, Putting it on railroad tracks, The Office Space method, etc.
www.ralford.net
I put mine out if its misery in 1997. I decided it had to go when the spark from a lightswitch in the room actually started turning the mouse on and off.
Urban Detail
There are so many more wasteful things, both the pseudo art project and all projects it inspires are negligible. Have you ever been to Las Vegas or Times Square? Do you realize how many ozone eating freon air conditioners are still being used? I'm not exactly sure why people pick on personal computers as energy wasters, but there are a lot of much more wasteful appliances that we could worry about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_bloc
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Shouldn't this have been posted April 1st?
"Radiation Bath".
Did I get it right? Huh?
I have this one in my closet right now! I didn't know I was an artiste until I saw this. Thanks, Slashdot !!!
about his Cancer treatment and other medical bills.;)
By the way from a far distance that photo looks like a Borg Cube.
He seems very influenced by Goldsworthy's artwork (another Scottish artist). but rather than using natural things such as trees, branches and rivers he uses technological items. http://www.sculpture.org.uk/image/504816331403 By the way, I really am a fan of Goldworthy. For a mezmerizing documentary about Goldworthy, see Rivers and Tides.
You are applying your own nihilistic vision of existence upon art. It is attitudes such as your own that are destroying human civilization as we know it.
Art is not MERELY whatever you want it to be. Art is propaganda. It is the conveyance of an idea, in the hopes that it will instill others with a change in their own value system.
Your floppy disk is irrelevant in the grand scheme of human existence. It is a tool, not art. No creature alive will be moved by its existence or lack thereof.
What you call arrogance is the desire of higher forms of humanity to ultimately change the world.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
finaly something we can use macs for!
Wouldn't it be better to donate old machines to somewhere like Free Geek who 'remanufactures' them and gives them to people who could otherwise not afford them? It seems like a horrible waste to go and build childlike forts out of useful components. What ever happened to using cushons from your couch?
Jeremy Logan's Website.
Basement, schmasement, my upstairs computer "lab" looks similar, only the "back sides" are all facing a wall (sonetimes in two rows deep though).
Okay, I said this is a long story, but of course that depends entirely upon how you tell it. I could just say "because I have a computer built in to my desk" and be done with it... But nah, that's not the way to tell stories.
So imagine this... a warm summers eve, the wind just barely cools the area down, and under a tree there is three drunken bastards laughing at silly cloud formation. Yeah, THAT drunk.
So one of the drunkards tell the other drunkard...
"Hey, you are really good with computers, can't you fix me a computer"...
The other drunkard, being really drunk, doesn't think about the hours of work this would entail, but picks up on the flattery instead.
"Yeah, sure, I can build one into a lightbulb for you if you get me enough cash."
They laugh. The first drunkard continues.
"Nobody said nothing bout cash. And you couldn't even fit a computer in a... car... or... a desk..."
*burp*
The third drunkard goes to pee, and is not found until late next day.
The second drunkard ponders this challenge for a while, his head immediately filled with ideas about how to build a computerized car.
"Hey, can I borrow your car?"
The first drunkard just laughs. So the second drunkard... i.e. Me, goes for the desk.
"I'll build a computer into my desk, and if I make it, you'll buy one of me for a 10% markup and workcosts."
Okay, maybe I wasn't as thought as he drunk I was.
"A desk?"
But he sure was.
"Nah, a puter, boxen, gamemachine, yadda yadda."
"I don't know bout the yadda yaddas, but I'd buy a gamemachine."
And so started the long story about the desk, that is a computer. No big deal though, just a hidden compartment behind the drawers that has a motherboard in it, extensions for all ports to properly accessible places, well muffled hard drives and yadda yadda. Also a complete power grid built into the desk with enough outlets for my other computerware... which has built up with time.
Specs?
Oh, you really don't want them. Oh, okay, you twisted my arm.
Pentium 2 550Mhz, about 367 MB Ram, 40 Gigs of hard drive, Gforce MX 440 graphics card, yadda yadda.
Runs Mandrake Linux, works as a downloader. Stuff is downloaded onto the disc, encrypted with PGP, rest is wiped regularly, when I start my storage machine stuff is transferred onto an encrypted bestcrypt partition and deleted from the downloader. This way I can keep the rather quiet desk on all the time, and my noisy main machines only when I use them.
I highly recommend every system builder to put yadda yadda into their machines. Makes all the difference.
an easy recipe for divorce... (for any of the married geeks out there [if you exist])
Get your torrents...
I have a butt load of really old computer parts. What can I do with them? I don't want to throw them away, but I can't use them either. I always wondered, who I can give them to to make use of them.
Some parts don't work, like a old mother board for example. But maybe someone with more knowledge than me can take it apart and recycle the parts that do work.
Any idea?
I'm the hippy??? I'm calling on you to shut off your goddamn hair dryer, and cut your hair, candy ass! I'm saying attention is better focussed on other things. And you knew what you were talking about, you'd know its the CRTs, not "computers" that use significant energy. Preach to fuktards somewhere else m'kay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_bloc
If /. still had a thinking audience this would be modded up. The meme about old computers wasting electricity is pretty resilient though. I think its an old marketing gimmick to sell new computers that gotta outta hand. I don't see nearly as much attention paid to the electricity use of CRT monitors, or other peripherals, just "electricity-wasting computers"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_bloc
I thought you might have been the original poster who was looking to "save the world." Its interesting that you find fault in my logic. The original criticism in this thread, was of the homemade house of computer parts (which we also aren't in a position do much about,) and That's what I was comparing to Las Vegas etc. As far as personal responsibility- we're a small part of a huge mass of people. We'd have to spend a large amount of time and resources to change everyone's habits. Wouldn't it be more efficient to lobby various companies and corporations to be less wasteful? Eh, poopy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_bloc