We live in an electronic age, where the microprocessor is ubiquitous. So pervasive is the use of integrated circuitry, that we have become indifferent to the phenomenal computational power surrounding us, and hence blithe to it’s disposability. In the late 60s when semiconductor technology was in its infancy, and the integrated circuit was still a novelty, a young scientist at Caltech, named Gordon Moore made the insight that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit was doubling every 18 months or so. This speculation became known as ‘Moore’s Law’, and has held up surprisingly well, with contemporary CPU chips containing millions upon millions of transistors, and increasing in computational power at an exponential rate.

With such growth comes inevitable redundancy – the state-of-the-art gadget you crave today will be left to gather dust in the back of a drawer in a couple of years time. It’s easy to lose sight of this rate of change, in fact, that we don’t just take it for granted, but actively expect smaller, faster, more feature-filled devices to replace the ones we found miraculous just a few months ago.

4-colour spray stencil on DEC Hi-Note Laptop

Which brings us to this piece – a portrait of Gordon Moore, from the 60s, about the time he first suggested his ‘law’. I have stencilled the portrait onto a 1995 DEC Hi-Note Laptop, which when released was a state-of-the-art device, retailing for £2360 + VAT – and now worth less than the price of a canvas.

I tried to estimate how many (now worthless) transistors this device contains:

• CPU – 486DX = approx 1 million
• Screen (800×600, colour) = 800×600x3= 1,440,000
• RAM (24MB) = 24×1024x1024×8 = 243,793,920
• Supporting chipset = approx 0.5M

This rough calculation suggests there are nearly 250 million transistors in this device alone. As you can see, the device has an ‘Intel inside’ sticker – After leaving Caltech, Gordon Moore went on to found the Intel Corporation, and now has an estimated personal worth of $3.7B …

Filed by shardcore at 10:33 am under 3d, mixed media, painting
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The internet is full of cat pictures, generally showing them as nonsense talking idiots. However, cats are not simply LOLing machines, I live with two cats who actively dislike each other.

Inspired by their daily fighting, I have chosen to paint some unLOL cats.

They are currently on display at The Tin Drum in Seven Dials Brighton, at the credit crunchtastic price of only £300 each. If you’re interested in purchasing one please email me directly.

“Mr. Frisky is alarmed by the sudden ringing of your iPhone.”

Silver Spray and Acrylic on Canvas 600mm x 600mm

“Mittens is displeased with your choice of economy cat food.”

Silver Spray and Acrylic on Canvas 600mm x 600mm

“Monty dislikes the neighbour’s new dog intensely.”

Silver Spray and Acrylic on Canvas 600mm x 600mm

Filed by shardcore at 11:51 am under exhibitions, for sale, painting
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Another great British Eccentric, Patrick Moore, presenter of the UKs longest running TV programme, The Sky at Night.

Silver spray and acrylic on canvas, 600mm x 600mm

Some visitors have noted that the silver spray doesn’t really come across in these photos. Here are a few ‘in progress’ shots to give an indication of how the stencilling fits into the process:

Here he is being interviewed by Brian May….

…and in his younger days, being characteristically enthusiastic about the telescopes he keeps in his shed:

Filed by shardcore at 5:24 pm under painting
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The second in my series of eccentrics, I give you Heinz Wolff, who presented The Great Egg Race in the 80s. Watching the show was a weekly ritual in the shardcore household, it was full of great British ingenuity and eccentricity as teams competed to create the most successful machine to solve a particular problem.

stencil and acrylic on canvas 600mm x 600mm

As is the case with Magnus Pyke, there is no footage I could find of the programme itself, aside from the theme tune [see below].

And here he is, admirably defending science against the onslaught of Ali G

Filed by shardcore at 4:42 pm under painting
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First of a new series of paintings of great British eccentrics. Eccentricity seems to go hand-in-hand with enthusiasm – a winning combination for televisual entertainment, particularly in the field of scientific communication. UK Television in the 1970s and 1980s was party to a number of these characters, the likes of which seldom make it to our screens any more.

Acrylic and spray paint on canvas 600mm x 600mm

Magnus Pyke was a hugely popular TV scientist from the 70s. He was in his 60s when he first appeared on the screen, all waving arms and gesticulations – the very picture of a ‘mad scientist’.

While researching him for this painting, I was struck by the dearth of images or video available online. There is a period of recent history which is woefully under-represented on the web. A period before digitisation, a period before even the adoption of the VCR which has simply never made the leap onto YouTube and it’s ilk. At his peak, Magnus Pyke was a more recognised scientist amongst the general population than Newton and Einstein – yet the only moving images I could find are from his appearance with Thomas Dolby in his hit She Blinded Me With Science which is embedded below.

Filed by shardcore at 12:32 pm under painting
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