JAMES WALLBANK - ARTIST/FREE TECHNOLOGY ACTIVIST
James Wallbank in an artist and free technology activist. James also directs the art & technology group Redundant Technology Initiative http://www.lowtech.org
Frankfurt 2000
I was tired when I took this picture. I'd just arrived after my delayed flight, and I'd already spent hours waiting, sitting on the plane, then wandering through abstract concourses, searching for my connection. At first I didn't like the curving distortions of the lens and the pixellation of the digital image - but gradually I began to see that this noise mirrored the distortions of the windows in the picture and the increasingly abstract, technological world I was moving through. I'd transformed into a single byte of passenger data, making my way through an overloaded packet-switching network. People in this image are just visible - but they're pixellated shadows, almost completely obliterated by overlaying grids of data.