This is the core of the computer. Everything is removed except for the CPU mainboard. After labelling the cables I could begin to put things back together.

The trouble was I couldn't afford anything fancy but I needed something fast enough to play videos. I searched for a long time until it was almost too late. My deadline was approaching when I saw an old CTX laptop. The brand is actually discontinued now but this one had an original drivers CD with it. The hinge was severely broken on both sides. This laptop has a plastic frame so repairing this would require a lot of work - perfect for dismantling. I bought it for CAD$320.

Why Make This System?
Instead of denial I propose to artists to practice acceptance and gratitude for the tools we are able to use in making our art. The tools of art are as much of a subject in art as the stories we tell. Unfortunately modernist ideas have obscured even many postmodern minds with the ideas of "a classless society" that ignores the medium "as long as the message is good." The postmodern reaction seems to be mostly in the discarding of the ideal of "a better life through progress." But society has not ceased to change. Artists must be able to see their own work in a larger context, regardless if they work in a gallery setting or in the commercial market. To do less than this is to merely react to trends in the art community without thinking about why and how we are able to make art regardless if its a painting using mass produced pigments or a photographer using commercial digital equipment.


In this way the photograph and more so the film owe their credits not only to the artists who conceptualise the forms they will take but also the people who invent and make the instruments of these mediums. In many ways both are a celebration or critique of industrialised society. Largely it has been musicians that have investigated the connection between art and industry. Groups like Einst�rzende Neubauten ( lit. Tearing down new buildings ) have used machinery and bits of raw commodities as their musical instruments. The aura of glamour surrounding film and photography rejects a view of itself on purely mechanical and industrial terms. Without industry the glamour would not exist. It is an integral part of both mediums.

Here I was seeing how all the parts would fit after I turned the screen up-side-down and put it on the other side of the mat board. I used paper to test the placement of everything before using plexi.

The Laptop I Used
When I brought it home I began to test all the components. Things seemed to work ok with the Windows operating system. I didn't want to run Windows because I wanted the open programmability of a Unix like operating system. This is where the fun began.

I downloaded FreeBSD 4.8 since I'm running an older FreeBSD on this server (back when I wrote this). It would have made things simpler to use the same OS on both computers but I got a kernel panic every time I tried to boot the installer. Eventually I gave up.

I used Debian before. So I downloaded the Debian installer floppies.

Problems encountered:

1. The CDROM on this EZbook is not reliable with any form or Linux, there are some workarounds but these were not worth my time.
2. The Belkin network card was not in the original pcmcia.config file. The Belkin Linux FAQ lists the data that must be entered into the file. This was an easy fix - see the end of this document for exact details.
3. Partitioning a harddrive that is only 2 GB is not easy. I wanted this to be a robust system with very separate home and var directories.
4. The CTX laptops have a strange quirk. They need to have a small partition at the beginning of the drive for writing the RAM to disk when it goes to sleep. Linux does not use this function as far as I know. It does't work on my EZbook, but I had to wipe the drive clean and install this partition before I installed the rest of Debian.

This is the first simple version of the frame. I was using foam-core and mat board because it's easy to work with but its not a very strong material for a long lasting frame. For the final result I used plexi.

After three installs I had all the quirks figured out. The computer runs almost perfectly. One little problem is that the clock battery is weak. The computer will not boot properly if it has been unplugged for a few days. Then I need to put the hard-drive in a horizontal position to boot it. After this it runs fine on its side. If I leave it plugged in all the time it boots without any trouble.

Some specs on this system:

• EZbook series, 233 Pentium with MMX
• 32 MB RAM
• 2 GB hard-drive swap = 320 MB, / = 160 MB, /usr = 900 MB, /var = 160 MB, /tmp = 45 MB

I need to have 320 MB of swap to run Imagemagick's animate function. It uses a lot of RAM and will crash if it can't get enough. I am using Mplayer to run the clips I made. It uses very little resources but it flashes back to the Xserver desktop each time it begins a new loop. I can run it either on top of XF86 running Blackbox or from the console directly to the video card (vo=vesa).

The Screen Test

After I knew everything would work properly I began to transfer all the parts to the clear plastic sheet. Since the protective wrapping is still on the plastic you can't see it's transparent but it kept the surface from being scratched during the work.

The first iteration of the laptop frame was made with the whole computer still intact. I wanted to get it all working before I removed any crucial parts. When I was happy the with the network, USB and video performance I dismantled the whole computer. I removed as many parts as I could.

Parts discarded:

The Prototype

This made the motherboard very compact. I put this upside-down onto a piece of mat board. I needed to keep the RAM and other bulky components from touching the paper. I used the plastic screw mounts from an old radio. I used a small power tool with a cut-off wheel to get those parts. I screwed every mount to the motherboard. Then it would be easy to glue the whole thing down to the mat board. Epoxy glue held the mounts to the mat.


The screen was glued to the other side of the mat board. Slots were cut into the mat to allow the connectors to pass through. I had to plug in the connectors with the screen facing backwards from its original placement. I put the computer upside-down as well. I used spacers in between the screen and the board to keep it from overheating.

I was happy with the layout. It worked properly and it ran very cool so the fan never needed to turn on to cool the CPU. I was worried about this since the CPU heat-sink fins faced the bottom of the computer. This is not an efficient way to cool.

The Final Design

I wanted the final look to be minimalistic. My brother began to help me put this together. He suggested I use clear plastic sheets to support the CPU and screen. So the screen and the CPU are attached back to back on the same piece of plastic sheet. The rear sheet is used to hold the assembly to the wall and protect the CPU but it isn't touching it at all. The two pieces are held in place with dowels drilled from both ends.

The photo gallery for the laptop digital frame is here.

The finished laptop frame displaying a looping five minute time-lapse film I made called "United" in 2004.

More Technical Info

I needed to add this to my /etc/pcmcia/config-2.4 for my Belkin PCMCIA ethernet card to work properly before I could do a network install.

• card "Belkin 5020"
• version "Belkin", "F5D5020-PCMCIA-Network-Card"
• bind "pcnet_cs"

I decided to partition the hard-drive this way to prevent any overlap or full partitions. Maybe I was too paranoid. I also opted for a journaling file system* because I expect this laptop to be be shutdown in nasty ways if it on exhibit, like it already has been a few times it was shown without my presence. The *ext3fs keeps the file system up-to-date so there is little or no corruption when it's rebooted. The best part of this is that I don't have to be there to run fsck on the disk and I don't have to teach anyone to do it for me.

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda5 183M 62M 111M 36% /
/dev/hda6 1.3G 826M 421M 67% /usr
/dev/hda7 168M 48M 112M 30% /var
/dev/hda8 38M 4.1M 32M 12% /tmp

I'm using Murasaki instead of Hotplug for my USB devices. It seems to work a lot better for me. I can use an apple keyboard and a Logitech 3-button mouse without drivers anytime I want.