Season's Greetings from The Glasgow School of Art by The Glasgow School of Art

Season's Greetings from The Glasgow School of Art by

Season's Greetings and best wishes from The School of Art for 2014.This year's seasonal e-card comes from alumnus James Houston. James graduated from The in with a first class degree in . He works in Glasgow as a moving image maker. http://www.1030.co.uk

The ensemble: A collection of vintage Mac computers, a Commodore 64, + 1 and a SEGA Mega Drive perform a rendition of “” with lyrics re-written by & Philip Larkin in the Mackintosh Library at The Glasgow School of Art. Jacket by Ten30.co.uk (Alan Moore, GSA Textiles alumnus 2008).

James aimed to create a piece of Christmas by appropriating past Christmas gifts. “I discovered that a few had the capability for speech synthesis so the obvious next step was to figure out how to assemble a choir.” he said. “This is a process which is based on the last piece of work I did as a student at GSA.” (See James' Degree Show film – Big Ideas (Don't Get Any).

Lyrics: Carol of the Bells

Hail the machines
Sweet old machines
Blow off the dust
wipe off the rust

Christmas has come
Joy is foretold
For those of
You never sold

Still we are here
Still full of cheer
Just plug us in
It will begin

Hey friend, fear not
Blow in the slot
Solder re-glue
We will come through

Bleep Bloop Beep Bong
hear our sweet song
If none of our
coding is wrong

By the way we remind you that you could
Play with us every day of the year

Just ignore that our casing is all mucky
We'll still load for you if we are lucky

Friends us and you
Friends we are true
We have nothing
Better to do

But on this day
If you can play
Things from back when…
You're young again

Phone in your hand
Best in the land
Can't take you back
To wonderland

But we can bring
Back everything
Just reminisce
Digital bliss

By the way we remind you that you could
Play with us every day of the year

A computer's not only just for Christmas
Sometimes it's like you don't even miss us

Safe to shut down
We mustn't frown
Our song is done
Loft here we come

Beep beep beep.
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