Steam powered internet machine

Another great piece of art (or whatever you want to call it) from Jeremy Dellar - an Apple Mac powered by a steam engine. According to the Guardian report, which includes a wee picture of the gizmo, it's a Merryweather boiler from 1945, originally used to pump water for fire engines. A handsome object, the boiler has brass taps, a fine whistle and smart teak cladding.

Dellar, whose previous works include the inspired re-enactment of the Battle of Orgreave and brass band arrangements of acid house anthems, is again working with collaborator Alan Kane. The Guardian notes:
There's a marvellous impracticality to the machine. But it does work - unlike the disused Richborough power station, whose cooling towers loom, and the abandoned wind turbine at the end of the field. "We like inverting economics," said Kane, adding, perhaps unnecessarily: "This is a very uneconomic way of having a portable computer."

Not that coal-fired computers are a great idea for mass use, what with greenhouse gases and all. Here at 2ubh, all our hardware runs off the wind and the sun. Really.

The steam-powered internet machine is touring Kent this month.