Artist Simon Blackmore reveals another potential icon of the techno age.

What’s the nature of your work?
I tend to work on projects rather than individual art pieces - like the Sprite Muskateer Mobile Gallery. It’s a 1970s caravan that I converted. That’s ongoing. Another is the Owl Project - me and Antony Hall.

Now these ‘Log 1Ks’, they look like motherboards in a slice of mother nature. What are they?
Basically a kind of electronic instrument. There are people playing with lap-tops in clubs, so I’m kind of questioning the authority of the machine in the way that the machine is more interesting to look at or the concept of someone stood behind a machine seems more interesting than the music. And so me and Antony thought it was funny to stand behind these two logs that are just so crude.

Lampooning ‘boys with their toys’?
Yes. We ended up playing in clubs quite a lot and I do actually like that music. But there’s room to have a joke.

Right. Explain the poster in the windows of Tib Street.
Harriet Clarke took the photo. It shows the Log 1K. It’s more an advert - almost like we’ve been product designers. It’s ripped off those Apple ads - I mean they’ve changed a bit since. But it’s the way these really expensive products get fetishised and everyone’s talking about how they want a G4, etc.

Any qualms about framing it in a retail window space?
Yeah, but I like the idea of the poster ‘cause it’s about that culture. It’s tied in conceptually with consumerism and so it fits.

The Log1K Poster, Debenhams to September.

Tweet