Brian Reffin Smith

Who is Brian Reffin Smith?

Brian Reffin Smith is a writer, artist and teacher born in Sudbury in the United Kingdom. He lives in Berlin, Germany. Working with computers since the middle 1960s, he was a pioneer of computer-based conceptual art, with the aim of trying to resist technological determinism and "state of the art" technology which might merely produce "state of the technology" art. After showing interactive artworks at the Musée d'art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1983 he was invited by the French Ministry of Culture to intervene in art education, and was later appointed to a teaching post in the École nationale supérieure d'art in Bourges. In the UK in 1979, Smith wrote 'Jackson', one of the first digital painting programs, for the Research Machines 380Z computer, software which was distributed by the Ministry of Education and widely used in schools and elsewhere. The BBC published his art software for the BBC Micro.

He has been cited as one of the most prolific letter-writers to the UK newspaper The Guardian, along with the celebrated Keith Flett.