Abstract:
The notion of the Graphical User interface (GUI) as art content, refers to artworks that have enlisted
the visual qualities of the GUI. These artworks investigate ideas around a computer interface aesthetic
as source material, and frequently challenge the media specificity of the screen-based interface. How
these artworks foreground the Graphical User Interface to comment on the formal, social and
speculative aspects of a computerised culture is at the center of this debate. The processes of human
computer interaction through the Graphical User Interface is generally accepted as the primary means
of operating in a digital environment and my hypothesis is that these tacit activities might also be
framed in terms of a digitally led creative practice. This paper will firstly establish how the Graphic
User Interface might by considered from a conceptual art position, and will go on to trace a number of
practitioners who reference the computer interface within their work.
