Brian Reffin Smith
Brian Reffin Smith (born 1946) is a writer, artist and teacher born in Sudbury in the United Kingdom. Working with computers since the middle 1960s, he was a pioneer of computer-based conceptual art, with the aim of trying to resist technological determinism and "state of the art" technology which might merely produce "state of the technology" art. After showing interactive artworks at the Musée d'art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1983 he was invited by the French Ministry of Culture to intervene in art education, and was later appointed to a teaching post in the École nationale supérieure d'art (national art school) in Bourges. In the UK in 1979, Smith wrote 'Jackson', one of the first digital painting programs for the Research Machines 380Z computer, which was bought by the Ministry of Education and widely used in schools and elsewhere.
Smith is a member of the OuPeinPo[1] group of artists, Paris, France; Regent of the College of 'Pataphysics, Paris, France, holding the Chair of Catachemistry and Computational Metallurgy. He is Professeur, École nationale supérieure d'art, Bourges, France.[2]
Smith won the first-ever Prix Ars Electronica, the Golden Nica, in Linz, Austria, 1987. Areas of work, research, teaching and performance include the idea of Zombie in art and elsewhere, and the détournement or "hijacking" of systems, mechanisms, programs etc. from computing and other areas of science and technology, to make conceptual art. Smith claims to have become a Zombie, and hence to have a deeper insight into problems of artificial intelligence and art, after a botched heart operation in a Paris hospital when, instead of the more usual latex balloon being used to inflate a blocked artery during angioplasty, the team had recourse to a puffer fish (or fugu).
He studied at Brunel University and the Royal College of Art, where he held a Research Fellowship in 1979 and was then appointed College Tutor in computer-based art and design at the RCA from 1980 to 1984. He taught widely in the UK and France including most London art schools and French Écoles nationales, the Open University in the UK and the Sorbonne in Paris. He lives and works in Berlin and France.
Exhibitions of conceptual art, installation art, performance art etc. shown internationally include "Electra", Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1983; Fondation Cartier, Paris, Galerie Zwinger,[3] Berlin, and Krammig & Pepper Contemporary, Berlin, 1986-. He played sixth clarinet in the notorious Portsmouth Sinfonia, and regularly performs Steampunk music. Exhibitions of his work frequently include songs written for the occasion, often on CDs nailed to the walls.
In addition to many books on computers for children and on computer-based arts for adults, he has broadcast and written widely on art and technology, in science, art and computing journals and magazines, and for British and European television and radio broadcasters and newspapers. Smith has contributed papers, presentations and performances to international conferences on Art, Design, Consciousness Studies and Digital Arts.
In his chapter in "White Heat Cold Logic: British Computer Art 1960-1980" (Ed. by Paul Brown, Charlie Gere, Nicholas Lambert and Catherine Mason, M.I.T. Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts (USA) 2009) Smith wrote:
"There is a mine, a treasure trove, a hoard – I cannot emphasize this too strongly – of art ideas that emerged in the early decades of computer art that still have not remotely been explored. We know how this happens. The next big thing comes along and the Zeitgeist has its demands: things get left behind…"
This quotation inspired an influential symposium "Ideas before their time" held at the British Computer Society in February 2010 at which Smith was the invited Keynote speaker.
[edit] Quotations
"Between black and white, there is always red."
"Of course computers and other devices will never fully understand flowing, allusive conversation. But they won't care." -- "The purpose of the computer in art is to render it difficult and problematic, not easy." -- "i, the imaginary square root of minus 1 (√-1) is to the real numbers as the computer is — or should be — to art." -- "The best interactive art always makes you look at the participants." 43 Dodgy Statements on Computer Art. - Described by Wired as "Timeless".
