Tom Jennings

Tom grew up in a cold-hearted rural suburb and spent his childhood making things and taking things apart (mainly the latter). When he was twelve years old he (quite naively) made a functional copy of Edward Keinholz's Friendly Grey Computer – Star Gauge Model 54, in his own mode, after seeing it in long-defunct Science and Technology magazine.

Tom currently makes functional and complex instrumentation that reveals the beauty hidden within scientific apparatus of the 1930's through 1950's, a time of unsurpassed social and scientific change. His work is about the aesthetics of scientific problem-solving and the obscure traditions of technical design. With his specific knowledge of the era and period materials and obsolete electronic components (backed up by modern embedded computer technology) he creates physical embodiments of historic conversations on long-standing problems, and illuminates discarded modes of thought and beauty. His instruments are presented as "products" of "World Power Systems", an ironic and non-existent entity of obscure origins and intent.

Tom started his working career while in high school, at jobs as close to science as he could get, initially as an electronic technician, later as an undegreed engineer in electronics, digital and analog design, later still in computers and networking, providing a solid technical basis for his present work. His interest in the history of computing and symbolic machinery dates to the late 1970's, and his understanding of technologies a half-century old has helped even with modern problems.

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