I'm a painter who uses computers to make my work. Last year, Croydon Clocktower, an arts centre in a London suburb, asked me to propose an exhibition of computer art. I already had an outline for an exhibition; a small central London gallery had suggested something similar a few months earlier. The trouble was, this gallery couldn't really stomach the mix of computers and art. They talked of rag paper, and couldn't see their regular clientele paying for something reducible to binary code.
The Croydon people had different priorities. Market research had revealed that computer art, if only as an idea, had an appeal to the shoppers in nearby malls. Paper quality, art-world kudos and artistic integrity didn't really come into the equation, and I found that refreshing. The more the administrators heard and saw of the interactive and the virtual, the more they liked it - especially the rides. But when I spoke of the stimulating thinkers I'd lined up for the catalogue, or of the sheer beauty of some non-interactive piece, I could see their eyes glazing over.
Computer art is a dreadful term. It isn't just one thing, or particularly about technology, or about cyber- this or cyber- that. It has come of age in the last ten years, and is sprouting in at least five adventurous directions. You can tap into the creative power of the computer, and that could mean the tracery of Roman Verostko (a monk for 18 years ), or Kawaguchi's bizarre and beautiful vegetation. You can put the spectators inside virtual gardens and aquariums as genetic engineers; that would mean Mignonneau and Sommerer's installations, or Jamey Sheridan's living carpets. You can give info-culture a twist, and that could be Bar-Min-Ski's dumb CD, Encyclopaedia of Clamps, or Troy Innocent's pulsing video games and animations. Or you can mix the electronic in with the traditional, like Bosch and Simon's shaking boxes and music machines, or Mari Kimura's impassioned violin pieces. The variety is incredible.
London has not seen a major exhibition of electronic art since 1968. Our art schools don't run courses in it. Galleries won't touch it. And much of what is done as "electronic" art is embarrassingly bad. So I jumped at the chance of putting together a show which would highlight the best of what's available, which unfortunately means mostly work produced overseas. I became a cyberspace salesman, but I didn't spot the catch. It was like getting a part in a TV drama and finding it was a game show. And like a game show, ratings meant a lot more than artistic substance. Once you book in a few interactive installations and VR set-ups, you find the non-interactive, silent stuff consigned to the corridor by the toilets.
To be fair, the new kind of art centre, with its Internet cafe, is meant to also be an oasis for the tired shopper. User-friendly interactive art is, well, state-of-the-art without being "difficult". It also waves and says, "This is the future." Art blending into mall culture? Perhaps. I visit Leicester Square with half my mind on this dilemma; the other half is busy photo-graphing - electronically, of course - the tourists. Like pilgrims, they wander in search of elusive magic and pay good money to be "taken out of themselves"; at the Rock Museum, maybe, or Segaworld, or at the movies. Looking at the queues, the vacant eyes, it seems that interactive entertainment is a strikingly isolating experience, like painless dental treatment with special effects.
And this is the crunch. In our enthusiasm for high-performance art vehicles, we computer artists cut loose from our roots, both in the art world and in the physical and social world of ordinary people. The freedom is exhilarating; I have enjoyed my interactive experiences and VR trips. But too often it's like handing your brain over to be massaged. Your attention gets diffused; you become submissive - or in my case, rebellious and obnoxious. Despite the jargon, most electronic art doesn't have the feel of a two-way interaction. Paradoxically, I find still images more interactive: the eyes that look back, the immobility of form that gets you speculating, all sense of time stopped. Painting can reflect thoughts back at you, give a sense of wholeness, of completion, resolution.
But aesthetic scruples wash over the manager of an arts centre that has to compete with a theme park. Croydon Clocktower did not have much money, but its managers were also worried that a VR art exhibition simply couldn't live up to their expectations. The chief administrator quite reasonably asked why a VR exhibition need be about art rather than kitchens. When the plug was pulled this February, I felt the usual frustration of dealing with institutions. But I also felt relieved. I didn't really want to adapt to a climate in which gimmicks count but the soul doesn't. When I contacted other venues, the answers weren't encouraging. To them, computer art meant art as point-and-click playtime, cyberstyling for the Internet cafe.
At present, computer art is a fantastically interesting collection of ideas and images, something close to being a global art movement, and the most stimulating art environment I've ever come across. It takes risks. It makes the mainstream art world look like a parade of vanity. Perhaps the 1998 ISEA (International Society of Electronic Arts) show in Liverpool and Manchester will change computer art's marginal status. But for now, electronic art is either being ignored, or getting fed to the public in a trivialised form. It would be wrong to keep quiet about that.
James Faure Walker is a computer artist and curator.