ON a recent visit to Hong Kong, Dr Timothy Binkley, the chairman of the graduate programme in computer art at the School of Visual Arts in New York, showed off some of the more unusual things he has been doing with his Macintosh 800.
Dr Binkley has degrees in mathematics, philosophy and computer science and combines his knowledge to create ''performances'' of computer art, or at least, demonstrations in which those attending are able to participate.
Books of Change was one he was demonstrating at the Arts Centre last week.
The participant sits in front of a computer that has a video camera sitting on the screen at just the right angle to get a full front shot of the person sitting at the computer. The picture is live so that every movement and muscle twitch is shown on the screen.
When the participant is happy with the image on the screen, he or she clicks the freeze button on the mouse and the face is ''frozen'' on the screen. Two more images are then randomly selected.
One is an endangered animal species and the other is an already extinct piece of computer equipment.