I spent New Year's Eve in Barcelona, Spain and visited the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, and it was interesting to see how computers and software technology are being used by the museums and by artists.

The interactive exhibitions seemed to be generating the most interest among visitors.

In a special exhibition of Swedish artist Oyvind Fahlstrom, the museum has used computers to allow visitors to use his interactive art. Fahlstrom has created variations of games and other types of exhibits, such as a type of Monopoly geared towards geopolitics in which he invites users to move magnets around to change the art.

Of course the museum doesn't want visitors fooling around with the exhibits hanging on the walls, so it had two computer terminals nearby from which visitors can use the mouse to shift and spin the various visual representations of the magnets. They could then print out the results. Perhaps this could be labelled `take out art'? Back in the 1960s and 70s Fahlstrom apparently attempted to mass print his art because he believed everyone should own a Fahlstrom. The idea didn't catch on.

I can speculate that mass produced works of art didn't go down well in a business that is geared towards exclusivity of ownership to guarantee a good cut for the dealers. You too can participate in re-arranging his art online at http:/www.f ahlstrom.com.

On the third floor of the museum was another more elaborate exhibition by Zush, which directly attempts to incorporate computers and computer imagery.

`The new potential of digital imagery transforms the notion of representation, making it seemingly impossible to differentiate between the real and the virtual',the blurb from the museum states.

`The reformulation of the relationship between body and space is one of the expressions of this new artistic paradigm'.

Zush, a former inmate of a psychiatric home, has built an on site experimental digital workshop where visitors can create variations of his works through a computer programme he designed called Tecura.

Zush says he's expressing confidence in the creative potential of all people, as well as in the therapeutic nature of art. In the room are a digital camera on a stand, and three computer terminals that project the large size screens on to the walls. Visitors can take photographs of themselves, then modify the images using the Tecura programme. Or they can begin with various images created by Zush and modify them using the programme. Again one can get a print out of the created image. A museum worker then comes around and stamps the print out to verify that it's a Tecura creation.

She also had to tell me to put back the digital pen, which I had, by habit, put into my pocket and was about to walk away with. Zush has been creating digital works since 1975 after he received a grant from the MIT.

But is it art or just people playing with a version of Photoshop? Cynics will say Zush's work is a crass attempt to cash in on people's fascination with computers. That may be so. But he has certainly broken down some of the boundaries between the viewer and art that one often feels when going through an art museum. Usually at a museum one gets swamped by the amount of art hanging on the walls or put in a case. There's the work of art. I view it. I read the description. Then I move on to the next work hanging on the wall.

At the Zush-created workshop I saw children and much older people playing around with the creations, seeming to enjoy the process. If computers can help bring more enjoyment and understanding to art and the artistic process then I'm all for it, although my wife was not pleased when I kept her waiting for half-an-hour while I created `art'.

By chance I happened to have dinner that night with an Italian sculptor who works with ceramics and wood. Furio Torracchi said he's slowly transforming himself into a painter of what he says are abstract landscapes aided by a computer. He first creates, or sketches, his images on the computer. He then uses the digital images to create his paintings.

In Torracchi's case the computer is a tool rather than part of the art itself.

He says that his landscapes are by nature quite linear and so computer programmes can easily be used to create the initial image. This is not such a different process from creating an initial sketch of an idea for a painting, although some might complain that technology is limiting or controlling the artistic process.

But many artists will tell you, it's the limitations imposed by the media they work with that ironically allows them to begin the process of creation. I'm waiting to see what the next generation of artists do with this `new' media.