UNIVAC
by Jared Purrington

UNIVAC was one of those huge super computers from the ancient twentieth century full of promise, vim and vigor. A part of a promise that someday every office and warehouse would one day have a room-size computer designed to keep track of accounting, sales and whatnot all at the many punches of a card.

"UNIVAC" is also a comics/poster project from Jared Purrington. As soon as I saw these pieces at APE in San Francisco, I new this was the sort of thing I wanted to get my grubby little hands on. Purrington creates an image (I'm guessing with the aid of computer magics) and then a print. He then hand draws and works on the prints and xeroxes the final product onto 11x17 paper (and one of the real shames of buying this at APE and the six hour flight it entails is that anything that big and rolled up to prevent wrinkles will invariably get a bit wrecked in the transportation).

So, Purrington is selling the three prints AND another print (on some kind of heavy, ridged paper) for $5. A steal at three times the price.

The first print is "You're Trying to Divide By Zero" an office building cutaway topographically diagramed, I guess would be a way to describe it. It's a bit M.C. Escher-looking at first until you look a little bit closer to find the logic in it. A bit like looking at a diagramatic construction plan in a box of Legos. Fat zip-a-tone, hunched over employees, hand-drawn town- and city-scapes, evidence of a murder (or two... oh wait, three?), Mr. Math, the Where's Waldo-esque bunny and some creepy tentacles can be found in the details of UNIVAC's cold montrous shape.

In "Hole There" (I'm using the writing nearest the top-left corner of the pieces to name them), the diagramatically exploded UNIVAC (that's probably a better way to describe the approach) has taken the form of a giant, menacing (and still icily cold) robot. He stands just outside of town amongst freshly planted trees still tied to posts to keep them from bending in the wind. Like UNIVAC, the suburban town he is leaving (menacing?) is a clear product of the forties and fifties, and like the trees, UNIVAC is the product of man's desire to harness, control and command nature. Also like the trees, UNIVAC is clearly going to grow beyond the controls of those souless men.

The third print, "You Always Love Something Occupied By Someone Who Hates You" appears to be twenty four panels of UNIVAC's search for love. Or companionship. Or equality. Or God. And UNIVAC falls prey to logic. Or heartbreak. Or disillusionment.

The final piece is a "group photo" of the staff of a nuclear testing facility. At first glance, the joke seems to be that they all look alike, but the real joke seems to be that they are all, in fact, distinct in appearance and personality.

I don't know what else to say aside from, "I want more." I'm not sure how you might, but try emailing Purrington vaya@msn.com

—Justin J. Fox