julian's post brings to mind access space in sheffield, which has a public lab with (totally?) recycled computers. they've just redesigned their web site & i can't find specific info about the recycling, but i understand that they collect computers from individuals rather than companies (or is it the other way around?), & give them a refit (http://www.access-space.org/). closer to home there are things like the 20/20 trust, computers in homes, & porirua e-learning trust that already do a lot of computer recycling. i've donated a few things to porirua e-learning & they seem to take just about anything.
as for the rest of the current discussion - i haven't been able to follow it closely because i'm completely overwhelmed with a project (http://www.creative-catalyst.com/letmego). from what i've skim-read it seems like there are many great & worthwhile ideas; but with all of these ideas, it takes a really motivated individual to actually make something happen & to keep it going; even when there is a team of people on a project, there's usually one or maybe two who are really driving it, & when that person or people either get burnt out or for whatever reason leave the project, it soons disintegrates. this is not to say that things shouldn't be attempted, but maybe we could also consider ways to support the people who initiate & put the hard work into making stuff happen, so that they don't burn out or when they leave they can hand over the reins to someone else. i don't have any answers, i'm just conscious of the whole reinventing-the-wheel thing that seems to happen so often in the arts in nz, & the constant emphasis on "new" rather than developing existing projects. h : ) > > As I mentioned last post, I wonder whether the digital arts scene in NZ could > benefit here from a corporate computer recycling program akin to that of > http://recycle.lowtech.org/ > > Lowtech has donations of hundreds of computers at a time - often just a couple > of years old and - sent from corporations and government offices rather than > shipped off to China or India for 'recycling' (or simply made into landfill). > They throw on a modern Linux distribution and distribute them to arts > organisations in turn. A formalised recycling program like this could pump PC > hardware - at the least - into events and workshops where needed, reducing the > portion of the budget otherwise spent on this hardware. > > Cheers, > > Julian > > -- ____________________________________________________________ helen varley jamieson: creative catalyst [email protected] http://www.creative-catalyst.com http://www.avatarbodycollision.org http://www.upstage.org.nz http://www.writerfind.com/hjamieson.htm ____________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ Ada_list mailing list [email protected] http://aotearoadigitalarts.org.nz/
