[vcf-midatlantic] Hard drive art

[Brian Brubaker]

Thank you for your thoughtful comments,  I'm very sorry if I caused any
agitation as a result of my art. I must admit,  lurker may have been too
strong of a word. I have a friend involved with vintage computers and is
the one who pointed out the one 14" platter I found from this group. Since
then I subscribed, but dont get a chance to read often.

The majority of my art supplies have come from Ebay with a substantial
investment on my part,  most being sold as scrap. Some platters, spacers,
and actuators were bought disassembled already. The ones not sold as scrap,
I'm paying the value of a working drive. Now at this point anyone else
could have purchased these drives and attempted to use them. I would be
happy to work with people from this forum to sell some individual parts one
might want. As for the drives themselves,  I've spent over $300 in shipping
alone for some of the 8" and 9" drives I've bought and disassembled from
CA. I've been scanning Ebay for over  a year targeting value, and specific
models , I've got 60+ searches I check daily. I've invested thousands of
dollars,  countless hours disassembling drives,  countless hours designing
and creating my art, and tons of blood and sweat.

That all being said, I do have an impressive collection of hard drive parts
from the last 50 years, and I can understand your frustration as a vintage
computer restorer. I would honestly rather use my parts for art, but I
could be willing to help provide parts for sale where I could. I have sold
90% of the circuit boards on Ebay, including many from real vintage drives.
I will say, when I looked into starting this project,  I did tons of
research into art made from hard drives,  what I found was there were lots
of clocks, and a few sculptures here and there, but nothing anywhere near
what I had in mind to make. So, I found something new and unique and
creative to reuse many old hard drives that eventually all would find their
way to a scrap yard or landfill. New + unique + recycling seems a rare
thing these days, and something I feel the world needs more of.

I think the shelf life (or wall in my case), can out live any working
vintage hard drive.  That being said,  I'm happy to work with those who
want to prolong their own vintage computers.

On Sat, Apr 13, 2019, 12:43 PM Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:

> Brian Brubaker posts about use of hard-drive parts to create art, for
> our appreciation. Well, this use of vintage electronics as art, gives me
> pause. I thought about it; I wrote a lecture; I decided a lecture would
> not be read or appreciated. So here's my straightforward considerations.
>
> Brian: I restore vintage computers to operation. So I see in parts of
> your art, computers that can't be restored because they were demolished.
> That's not an abstraction, for me - that is a fact.
>
> This situation is not your fault. However, you have posted in a group of
> vintage-computer restorers; so my point is relevant in this forum.
>
> So: Brian, I encourage you to make available, such ancient drives and
> parts as might be useful to restore ancient computers. I'm sure you can
> get guidance about doing so.
>
> I don't mean to spoil your fun or interests. Do not go back to "lurking"
> because some old-guy doesn't like your work - that is not what I said,
> that's not how I said it. Art evokes responses; the artist can't
> determine all those responses. This is part of my response. And
> certainly, there's art today which is FAR more controversial than a
> bunch of old computer parts. I'm making a point, not cursing your works,
> which have artistic merit.
>
> Brian, thanks for showing your works in this forum.
>
> Herb Johnson
>
> --
> Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA
> http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net
>