I went to the Computer Generated Arts Show at the Bermuda Society of Arts' Onions gallery at the city Hall with some trepidation. I have used a computer for many years as a vastly improved version of the typewriter, but beyond learning a couple of other basic applications I am, to all intents and purposes, computer illiterate. Thus I entered the Onions gallery completely ignorant as to the methods used by these modern day artists to achieve their results.

Studying the catalogue, it seemed that there were several different applications and programs in use. How they work, however, is beyond me. I have seen a couple of friends touching up photographs on their computers and I am aware that photography no longer requires film. Beyond that the catalogue distinguishes Digital Art, Digital Photograph, plain old Digital, old-fashioned Photograph, Illustrator, Painter, Photoshop, and Rapid Prototyping (a sculpture).

The results vary from what look to me exactly like photographs to plain old bad painting. Even the catalogue had been computerised and was alphabetical by artist despite the fact that the gallery was not so arranged. Thus I start with Christina Cabral's Digital Art. Her three works might have been those of three different artists. "Pink Effusion" was a photograph, perhaps intensified, of flowers. "City Lines" was a photograph of high-rises drawn over and highlighted in an impressionistic way that I found pleasing.

"Beyond His Years" was a portrait of a young man under a jaunty hat, perhaps superimposed, perhaps merely digitally intensified; the result was compelling.

Alfred Caisey, in the same medium, was almost as varied. The extent to which reality can be altered in these processes was amusingly demonstrated in a photograph of a sexily dressed model standing in front of a car. This was "Article (Before)". "Article (After)" was the same photograph sexed up to become a lurid advertisement for a fancy and very expensive car stereo system and the car itself, entertainingly named a Cutazz 3. I laughed out loud. His work is not all light hearted however. "RIP" presented a casket propped over a grave in a cemetery devoid of mourners. It is a fascinating work whose meaning escaped me.

Carolyn Carr, perhaps just to confound my dislike of representations of sunsets, offers "Sailor's Delight", a work fraught with irony. The sunset is real and red enough, but it is almost blanketed out by an advancing storm, dark and foreboding enough to belie the traditional ditty. Her other works, digitally fiddled with or not, come across as photographs, albeit of good quality.

Heidi Cowen's digital photograph "Not for Sale", a girl walking away from the camera in a damp, vaulted tunnel, had artistic merit enhanced by its title, but her other shots of the lighthouse had more effort in them than effect.

The most prolific artist in the show is Fiona Curren, who becomes Curren Lanzino in midstream, perhaps the effect of marriage. Her work is listed as just plain Digital and will be well known to many for her relish in crowded streets in New York and Hong Kong. Her Hong Kong shots always remind me of why it is that I disliked being in that famous city. In this show, however,"Rainy Streets of Kasloon" (wherever that may be) is invested with an air of mystery that lifts it above her usual bustling, crowded streetscapes.

Curiously it is priced considerably lower than the others are. Three of her works listed in the catalogue I couldn't find at all.

Angela Ming-Bean's two Digital Art works left me in the quandary brought on by such works. Either they were photographs altered beyond recognition as such or they were original works using some electronic method to achieve them. If it was the latter, I would recommend a paintbrush.

The same applies to Nick Minugh's work with Illustrator. Presumably this is a computer program that allows its operator to draw and colour his work. Mr. Minugh has produced flat, simplistic, anthropomorphic cubist images that lack the necessary humanity to move them from the cold and mechanical to the level of art.

Colin Murdoch goes two ways with his Digital Art process. For the greater part he retouches photographs to render them impressionistic. In "Tree and Rock" he simulates a line drawing with a distinctly oriental sensibility about it. It was, rightly I think, chosen by photographer to illustrate the intent of the show. There isn't a better work in this show to illustrate how art can actually be achieved by controlling a machine rather than a pen or a brush. Unfortunately Mr. Murdoch also put his hand to a programme called Painter. The result is something that has all the appearance of a badly painted boat.

Alan Smith's "Kingdancer in the Dark" is another Digital Art work that shows the capacity of the medium. The work is powerful, with a dramatic composition and colour scheme. It superimposes candles on the dancer and almost loses the male form in a vivid chiaroscuro. The result is printed onto canvas producing a matte finish with texture and depth that responds interestingly to changes in the light thrown on the work. His other works, silhouetted male figures with varied infill and superimposition, looked more interesting at first sight than they actually were on closer study. Only the aggressively startling "Pipe" is likely to excite much comment ? and that mostly from the overly religious.

Where Colin Murdoch had difficulty with the Painter program, Jane Pearson and Jennifer Ward did not. The former's work is decorative, simple and bold. The latter has a varied repertoire from a lush poppy worked as a triptych to an in-your-face dog who would like to pass himself off as fierce but doesn't. It is executed in a green colour scheme. Perhaps her best work is "Bamboo" and, whether it is worked from a photograph or created from scratch, it has the stylish simplicity of the oriental.

This is an interesting show, even to the computer illiterate. For those with some idea of what is involved it should be a fun show. It closes on December 2.