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Writer's pictureJonathan Oakes

Too Much Time With The Computer

I originally thought it was the promised land. Endless creativity glimpsed at, imagined and relished. No more paint splatters on clothes, stained carpets and squeezing my painterly creativity into a small room. Photo manipulation and abstract digital artworks. All the possibilities contained in a small, well lit box, endless hours staring and clicking, barely moving and sometimes blinking, it proved to be a non physical alternative to painting. Never having the true experience and never experiencing the truth.


This hypnotising digital despair was amplified ten fold by the realisation that I could produce multiple musical tracks of original sounds and therefore make my own music with a few clicks of a mouse. Music has always had a huge influence on my life and now I was able to create self influencing musical creations and or landscapes, audible painting. Capturing individual elements and editing/ manipulating them to fit into my acoustic vision. Five years of this intense computer faced entrapment. Learning how to use the software, experimenting with sounds and my listening, producing volumes of digital data that needed storing in tiny places. Hardly creating anything physical save a few quick sketches in response to the sounds and writing twisted, misaligned poetry of guilt and regret.

Below are a few examples of that time. I have moved on from the constant creative interface. I severed my digital dependence. Looking back and viewing then as a different me. Now, years after, the bombardment of virtual communication is constant, tools of make believe necessity. I post and subscribe and my search history is monitored. Now is not the time to be distracted by the chaff rooms. Entertain my brain and not adjust my eyes. Checking frequently if anyone has sent.


Stuck and Needing to Shout

Acrylic and chinagraph pencil on paper

Sound Inspired Gallery art4oka.com


A pixelated environment:

We sit in front of a glass screen for information, instruction and experience.


A Misplaced Love Poem:

There you are sitting confidently

Across the room

Casually observing all

Leaving nothing to the imagination

Unimpressed by it all

You are quickly blinking at me

Or is it me, who is blinking at you?

Your radiance it glows

Upon my face

As I gaze back, and moan

The lights are on

But nobody is home


Focus

My feet are sore from sitting all day

My brain is anguished for being so lazy

My eyes are de-focusing from not seeing anything else

Digital Recording

Acrylic and chinagraph pencil on photographic paper

Sound Inspired Gallery

art4oka.com



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