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About the Project
Information in digital format is tied to
the physical device on which it was created and stored.
Computer hardware, software and operating systems are
continually evolving, creating Digital
Obsolescence*, where data is no longer accessible
because the media to read it does not exist anymore.
Email and social media sites have essentially
replaced letters. Communication between friends, family
and lovers is increasingly in digital format. Are all
modern stories then doomed to disappear?
Love and Death, Archiving the 21st century
aims to chronicle our times through a tangible form that
is representative of the digital medium and of our legacy
as a society. Using lace technique with thread made from
recycled plastic shopping bags, I record Facebook posts
and Friends' comments, Tweets and Text Messages.
Lace is a traditional feminine craft, aptly
in opposition to computer science which has become a male
dominated field. Yet the technique has a lot in common
with computers, since it also uses a binary method to
display a message. Like a machine using ones and zeroes
to manage complex operations, the lace is formed into
a grid, and squares are either filled (one) or left empty
(zero) to display words and embellishments.
Recycled plastic shopping bags are cut and
used as thread for this project. Plastic is a modern material
that best represents who we are as a culture. It is indispensable
and it is completely unnecessary; it is vital to our modern
lives and it is harmful to our environment; it is a true
technological achievement and a sign of our failure. Ironically,
plastic will most likely endure past our digital age.
*If you want to read more about Digital
Obsolescence, here's a list of articles about the issue:
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