These allusions reverse the traditional sense of machines as inhuman devices. Besides making objects, Roseanne Bartley carries a broader responsibility to keep alive the lost world of manual keying. Bartley's work combines creative care with the everyday world of practical action. The other side of the coin to typewriter jewellery is the keyboard mayhem of 'shoot-em up' computer games. A game like Quake combines violence with the melodrama of gang warfare.
Reaction time is critical.
It is a highly focused experience that engages only a few keys of the computer. Yet even a destructive pastime like Quake has developed its own craft-like ecology. There is a host of communities where dedicated players can share individually written scenarios with each other. There are even guilds of Quake programmers who run servers for the use of fellow gamers. Once inside one of these guilds, though, it is difficult to mistake the violent tenor.