Three Slideshows After Ed Ruscha and The Networked Computer

2006, 7:07 min, color, silent

Writes the artist: "The idea behind these pieces was to re-imagine the approaches to photography and the archive Ed Ruscha displayed in his books, through the lens of a post-personal computer, post-Internet, post-Google image search age." To do so, Bell-Smith arranged images sourced from the Internet into three Powerpoint slideshows.

He writes: "In the first piece, Stains/Glitches, Ruscha's portfolio of actual stains on paper is reinterpreted as a portfolio of glitches, visual marks of computer error. In Various Small (images of) Fires and Milk, I re-interpret Ruscha's 'small fires' as lo-res images of fires. Lastly, in Every Building on the Sunset Strip (Internet Re-Creation) I attempted to re-create, sight unseen, Ruscha's Every Building on The Sunset Strip by culling together information and imagery from an online mapping service. If Ruscha's book purports to capture the Sunset Strip through deadpan documentary photography, my version has a further step of remove: attempting the same representation from the confines of my desk."