Red Burke   Visual Artist  

In my art practice painting, found objects and three dimensional interpretations of radio and computer parts, point to the idea of communication exploring obsolete computer and technological systems. Looking back to a bygone era of the computer industry in Galway, it was once the centre of the Irish computer industry, the place where I spent all my working life. Now I am investigating the use of space and the component relationship in the way they complement and sometimes fight with one another.

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The space of the computer reminds me of office blocks and industrial developments. Wandering through components is like walking down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Imagine tiny creatures walking these spaces among the heat sinks, capacitor; to them this could be high-rise apartments, industrial developments, oil tanks or stationary cars.

From my initial exploration of the computer industry, this research expanded into radio transmission. In the middle of a bog in Clifden Co. Galway, lay the ruins of a 300-acre site of a complex radio transmission structure set up by Guglielmo Marconi. I am presently striving to reproduce the energy that was once there and give some idea of the sheer size of that operation. The vastness of that enterprise is echoed into the scale of today’s technologies. I am trying to show the scale of the obsolesce technologies and bring back the vitality that was once there.