Nothing Thing

By Paulo Silva

Genre: Demo: Sustainable Retrotechnographica

Different.  That’s what this one is.

I spent a long time thinking about what to say here and I’m still not satisfied.  So time has passed & I’m just going to write.

This entry is clearly a whimsical play around with old ZX81ish graphics on a 30 year old computer using a newish hardware thing called ULA plus.  I don’t know much about ULA+ but if I’m right it’s some kind of interface/plugin/chip/box that tickles the colour vibration doohickey coming from the motherboard and perturbs the frequencies so you get more colours (though I’m not a hardware guy, please correct me if I’ve got any details wrong there- that's about the size of it tho).

The program consists of 4 screens which utilise the modern fancy ULA+ business, a collage, and is a call for a resource based economy and to consider things like the Venus Project.

This is a work of art as it is about, and is, in itself, a nothing thing*.  If I’ve understood correctly, a nothing thing is a thing designed to keep everyone occupied instead of thinking.  Thinking about what?  Well the big things we don’t like to think about (so I’m not sure these nothing things even need to be designed): solutions, the future, food sources, energy, population, climate….brrrr.

At least the ULA plus makes the screen look completely different to the normal Spectrum version, which looks a bloody shambles in comparison.

 

Errrr.

Thought provoking, abstract artsy, and left me feeling CARP and confused.  Thankyou Paulo! (though I do hope your next entry is a silly one, with lots of Otters or something).

*though please don’t ask me to justify that, I’m not, nor never have been an art student.

Tipshack: try to be half decent and keep your chin up.  Not that I can talk.

Download here  .
 And the sources here.