*It's important to realize that tech-art is period tech art, even when it tinkers with stuff that doesn't go mainstream for 30 years – or never goes mainstream at all.
*The point the reviewer makes about open-sourcing dead code is a great back-projection. When Harold
Wilson was Prime Minister, software was invisible fairy-dust.
http://www.furtherfield.org/features/reviews/white-heat-cold-logic
(...)
"Graham presents the case for art computing in a way that the art critical mainstream should not just be able to understand but should be inspired by. Cybernetics, systems theory, environmentalism, socialisation, the content of conceptual art, and the political concerns and developments of the Cold War all illuminate and are in turn illuminated by this history.
"For a book about art computing it is frustrating how little art and source code is illustrated in the book. Much work has been lost of course, and "Digital Pioneers" does illustrate art from this period. But for preservation, criticism and artistic progress (and I do mean progress) it is vital that as much code as possible is found and published under a Free Software licence (the GPL). Students of art computing can learn a lot from the history of their medium despite the rate at which the hardware and software used to create it may change, and code is an important part of that.
"White Heat, Cold Logic presents hard-won knowledge to be learnt from and built on, achievements to be recognised, and art to be appreciated. Often from the people who actually made it. What was previously the secret history or parallel universe of art computing can now be seen in context alongside the other avant-garde art movements of the mid-late 20th century. I cannot over-emphasise the service that CACHe has done the art computing community and the arts more generally by providing this much needed reappraisal of early arts computing in the UK...."
