Compuders!
2019
Neon
38 x 221 x 6 cm
Edition of 3 plus AP

“A yellow neon sign hangs in the gallery window, a seeming relic of a recent, perhaps more optimistic, technological past… Compuders! (2019) is a work by Northern Irish artist Michael Hanna. The neon sign in the window reflects on the pace of societal and technological change – how quickly ideas and objects become outmoded. The hopeful quality of the neon, with its bright yellow colour and exclamation point, has a melancholic aspect, as if the work has remained in place, long since forgotten about, as the world has changed around it. The neon tubing recalls the design of early computers, which utilised glass vacuum tubes to carry an electric current. The Calibri typeface used was initially designed to be read more easily on a screen rather than on the printed page – perhaps assuming a world where everything would be digital – but now feels dated to our 2021 eye… The work’s vibrancy and scale wrong-foot us to the subtle details encoded within.”

Edward Ball, Quicksilver exhibition text, 2021