81 Year Old Artist Still Using Her Amiga 1000 (not what you think)

[AmigaBill]

ha ha Vincent you are too kind my man. Very glad you guys enjoyed the video.  Thanks for posting it Pentad ! It was really awesome to meet her and have the opportunity to become her friend.  She is really a sweet lady and extremely smart and talented.  I might do more with her - like record one of her exhibitions.  It would be a lot of fun!  Cheers guys!

[AmigaBill]

[FONT="]as per my YouTube post:[/FONT][FONT="]
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   [FONT="]"love   her & her Amiga 1000! [/FONT][FONT="][FONT="]TREVOR[/FONT] you heard the lady ...get her an X1000   ASAP :-)"[/FONT]
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Ha ha, that is awesome!  I saw that and I actually sent it to him based on your comment.  I was like "Come on dude Samia needs a new Amiga."

[AmigaBill]

That's really cool, thanks for sharing! I noticed she has the C= 5-1/4" floppy to the right of her A1000. Wonder what she does with that? Transferring files to and fro a PC or running some PC software I guess.

Save2600 I asked Samia your question.  She said the drive came in a bundle deal when she bought her 1000 and she simply used it to store her early BASIC programs.

[AmigaBill]

@AmigaBill

Have you thought of submiting this story to osnews.com?

It is the kind of article that we enjoy reading over there, and an oportunity for more exposure.

Anyway, great video. Thank you.

you rock! thanks sooo much for this beautiful video...it should win an award somewhere:D

Thanks so much guys.  Really appreciate the kind words.  I am not familiar with osnews.com.  I will check it out and submit the video. Thanks for the tip Gulliver!

[AmigaBill]

Pentad, that's awesome.  I love that you taught both art and computer science.  Combining art and computer science is very underrated.  Look at the demoscene.  That is exactly what it is.  Beautiful images and music combined with brilliant coding. Same goes for video games.  I think the gorgeous art that goes into many them is often overlooked especially by the mainstream who just poo-poos games.  Yes, Rain is a BASIC program. She was showing us the Platte command that she used to make the darker tones.

Her mouse needed a good cleaning, but I think I am going to hook her up with a new one anyway.  Akira suggested that I check her monitor cable which is a great idea. If it isn't the cable then I can't help because repairing a monitor is beyond my skills, but I know people here who can help.  Unbelievably, one of my FB friends offered to donate a 1200 to her.  I haven't heard back from Samia, but I would bet the farm that she won't refuse that offer!  Wow, the Amiga community really pulling together.  I am blown away by that gesture.

[AmigaBill]

AmigaBill, you did a great job with your video. Have you thought about expanding the video into a a documentary? I also won the Sundance Film Festival with my first film and I think you could really turn this into a nice documentary and submit it to some film festivals.

There are a number of angles you could explore here. Samia is a very interesting subject that you could really build around:

Samia's background and move to America
Her life as an artist and her experimentation with art and technology (A2E)
The introduction of the Amiga
Technology evolution from A2E to Amiga
Language evolution from Logo to C for controlling graphics
The rise of the Demo Scene as you had mentioned as a new form of art
The rise of digital artists and their quest to be taken as serious artists (Rodney Chang)
Contrast her work with say Jim Sachs - One does her art in programming and the other uses tools to create art in his programs (Jim is amazing)
Reflect her life in the growth of CGI and Pixar


This is just a rough outline off the top of my head but you get the idea.

Great work!
-P

Wow @Pentad, I haven't thought of expanding it, but that is a very solid outline.  Now you have my wheels turning! My plans for the future were to expand it by going to one of her live performances and making a "sequel."  I also have some other very interesting Amiga folks here that I want to profile in a similar way. I have spent my career shooting other people's projects, and it has been truly incredible, but this has given me a boost to make some of my own. I really want to make tech documentaries, but done in a visual and artistic way. I am going to approach Motherboard and places like that who may be interested in hiring me for some of their projects as well.  Congrats on Sundance.  That's awesome! I have shot a few films that made it there but never won anything.

The exile from Jerusalem Palestine to Beyrouth then the US is interesting and need a bit more details. It is an addictive video!
Do you have a link to download the highest quality version?

You know, a few people mentioned that to me. To put it into context, I shot the whole thing (except the scenic shots and artsy shots) in 4 hours which is a very short time for something like this.  I had never met or even talked to her before so I had to earn her trust quickly.  I was originally introduced to her and went there that night to preserve her work by backing up the floppies onto a CF card, but when I learned a bit about her I figured I would bring my camera.  Glad I did! I think her background is very important and influences her art, but I purposely didn't go there because YouTube can be a really brutal place and I wanted to direct people's attention to the Amiga and was hoping to keep it positive without getting politics into it, so that is why I shied away from that. But I agree, it is an important and interesting part of the story especially if I expand on it.

The 3840x2160 40Mbs file on YouTube is the best one that exists right now, but if you are interested in screening it somewhere or something I can make a high quality ProRes or similar for you if you would like.

Thanks so much for all the support and great ideas everyone.  The Amiga community is the best! :elvis: