Special art and technology issue
There is such a thing as the issue of art and technology. There must be! There is a double issue of Artlink that it has taken a year to get off the ground, with learned writing, histories, interviews, advertisements, and pictures, some of them in colour, on this very subject. First note the uneasy way the two things i.e. "Art" and "Technology" are placed together. It isn't "Technology in Art" or "Technological Art" or "Art Technology". How (and why) they are to be put together seems to be moot. They may be facing each other in a Mexican stand off or about to embrace amongst the roses. Given that these two things are within spitting distance of each other what should the informed magazine reader be thinking about them and what should that reader be telling his/her children?
Well the second thing you might note is a degree of substance. The editors have been storing up their nuts to provide us with no mean feast. The special issue is a joint project with the Australian Network for Art & Technology, which is in essence a register of Australian artists interested in and/or using technology. So we see the work of these artists and we read what they have to say. As one might expect these are the enthusiasts and it is from this source that we get news of what technical toys do what. Here there is scope for discussion of such diverse topics as the use of a high pressure water lance to cut thick float glass (not just in straight lines mind but in all sorts of invaginated complexity), the use of computers to facilitate the manipulation of