“I’ve always been curious about where our memories go when we disperse of them in the cloud.
After many years, I was on the search for a specific memory only to find out the file was corrupt or significantly altered.”
In a sense I remember everything that has propelled me here.
I do not remember exactly.
Well maybe I do.
In my mind.
My mind is a propeller.
My dads old computer fan, blows away specs of dust out my face.
Sweat, sweat, name a time and place.
What lies between a machine and I?
Nothing?
I have lived in control all my life.
Who dictates my life?
A schedule on a screen no less>
Do you remember when?
Dare they say.
Here I come, here I am to stay?
I venture and look, through all my life.
Machine, machine, is life a lie?
Remnants of who me I guess?
I remember this day, oh well regress/
What remains in the file is what I’ll aspire
I can control, delete, now it has expired.
Have you ever wondered what happens to the photos you upload on Google Drive after a trip? Perhaps a family vacation, where you captured the funny moments, the perplexities of getting lost, where your mom had a glass of wine too many. Or perhaps a short film you’d made freshman year that you uploaded on that one expensive external drive that one professor made you get, and you want to go back to retrieve that. Well, I wonder what happens, because for so long I did not, I mass uploaded files onto various sources or external drives and perhaps did the routine upload onto social media or any online drive tools, but then I essentially would let them rot there.
To find that the files had been damaged and eroded over time, while technology advances our memories and photos, therefore, do not. They stay stagnant as they were then. Your brother waving at the trains trapped in that pixelated train for all time.
What happens in the grand land of cyberspace?
Essentially our reliance on technology to collect memories creates a ‘parasocial’ experience with others and the world around us. ‘Pics or it didn’t happen’ is something the youth says nowadays, to prove something happened and it's only validated if you have photographic proof. It’s almost controlling. Well no it is, because at the same we can just delete things from our minds and reflect that on our phones and clouds.
We can now live in the clouds, just like the service on our devices. We can repress that bad breakup, or psycho friendship we can delete it. Delete it, permanently.
Sometimes I delete things and wonder if they happened. Sometimes I upload them and forget they exist, until a decade later when I want to retrieve them for a #TBT post to conveniently post ‘fitting’ and seemingly cute memories for the masses to enjoy, fake friends and bland acquaintances alike. The day aforementioned, was when I cried before going on the school recital stage because a girl named ****** called me fat. Can I delete this now?
What inspired my project was full disclosure, a rather unpleasant ending to a relationship that brought me to purchase a new laptop. (Yet another breakup-inspired story) After I had gotten a new laptop because my ex ‘thing’ (they who shall not be mentioned, deleted, ironically) kept my old laptop, I failed to do one crucial thing. Wipe my iCloud and get a new password. There we were, my ex having my password and access to everything I was doing, he was blowing up all my devices with the blaring ‘Find my iPhone’ sound. To avoid having to wipe my devices, with all my pictures, memories, and school assignments, I simply turned off my devices in hopes they would stop. But no, they got smart. Eventually, when I was trying to work on a studio final on my laptop, they wiped everything from my Cloud, including what I was just working on. Causing me to have to start from scratch. This immediately caused me to idealize my digital deception-hiatus concept, where I initially created a podcast to document the loss and think of where our files are when we rely on the backup factor of it all.
Digital deception, because my technology deceived me, while it was due to another being ruining everything with a push of a button, I was betrayed by my own devices. Go figure.
Hiatus, because after a long-term relationship of insanity, control, and absence I could be reborn and create again. Not an easy task. But as I posted on my ‘art Instagram’, the hiatus is over. Much like <HELLO WORLD> (once again.)
Luckily most of my files were backed up onto various clouds, however, they were significantly different from how I remembered them, file damaged, pixelated, corrupted, and quality tarnished. And there was no chance of recovery, only restoration.
This pushed me to think of how I could effectively restore digital files but also push the damage further.
“I’ve always been curious about where our memories go when we disperse of them in the cloud.
After many years, I was on the search for a specific memory only to find out the file was corrupt or significantly altered.”
In a sense I remember everything that has propelled me here.
I do not remember exactly.
Well maybe I do.
In my mind.
My mind is a propeller.
My dads old computer fan, blows away specs of dust out my face.
Sweat, sweat, name a time and place.
What lies between a machine and I?
Nothing?
I have lived in control all my life.
Who dictates my life?
A schedule on a screen no less>
Do you remember when?
Dare they say.
Here I come, here I am to stay?
I venture and look, through all my life.
Machine, machine, is life a lie?
Remnants of who me I guess?
I remember this day, oh well regress/
What remains in the file is what I’ll aspire
I can control, delete, now it has expired.
Digital Deception-Hiatus
SMFA Senior Thesis Program Spring 2024
Video Installation Project (2 Channel)
Have you ever wondered what happens to the photos you upload on Google Drive after a trip? Perhaps a family vacation, where you captured the funny moments, the perplexities of getting lost, where your mom had a glass of wine too many. Or perhaps a short film you’d made freshman year that you uploaded on that one expensive external drive that one professor made you get, and you want to go back to retrieve that. Well, I wonder what happens, because for so long I did not, I mass uploaded files onto various sources or external drives and perhaps did the routine upload onto social media or any online drive tools, but then I essentially would let them rot there.
To find that the files had been damaged and eroded over time, while technology advances our memories and photos, therefore, do not. They stay stagnant as they were then. Your brother waving at the trains trapped in that pixelated train for all time.
What happens in the grand land of cyberspace?
Essentially our reliance on technology to collect memories creates a ‘parasocial’ experience with others and the world around us. ‘Pics or it didn’t happen’ is something the youth says nowadays, to prove something happened and it's only validated if you have photographic proof. It’s almost controlling. Well no it is, because at the same we can just delete things from our minds and reflect that on our phones and clouds.
We can now live in the clouds, just like the service on our devices. We can repress that bad breakup, or psycho friendship we can delete it. Delete it, permanently.
Sometimes I delete things and wonder if they happened. Sometimes I upload them and forget they exist, until a decade later when I want to retrieve them for a #TBT post to conveniently post ‘fitting’ and seemingly cute memories for the masses to enjoy, fake friends and bland acquaintances alike. The day aforementioned, was when I cried before going on the school recital stage because a girl named Virginia called me fat. Can I delete this now?
In an era dominated by the relentless march of technology, our digital landscapes serve as repositories of memory, holding within them the traces of our past experiences, interactions, and identities. However, beneath the veneer of permanence lies a fragile ecosystem susceptible to decay and manipulation. My artistic exploration delves into the phenomenon of media decay, where files break down and you can see wear and tear more, for example, more defined pixels. While not always aesthetically pleasing, I am intrigued by the coding behind it.
By utilizing video and repeated recordings of projections to showcase the gradual erosion of digital memory over time. Through this process, I seek to metaphorically unravel the intricacies of memory repression and explore the notion of unwanted recollections festering within the recesses of our digital archives.
In my thesis, I am exploring an artistic rendition of media decay through the use of video and repeated recordings of projections to showcase the decay of media over time. A main concept I am exploring is the idea of digital memory degrading and as a metaphor for unwanted memory repression. We can control what we keep in our digital world. Sometimes we can’t control what we see, but we can control what we remember from our own devices.
What inspired my project was full disclosure, a rather unpleasant ending to a relationship that brought me to purchase a new laptop. (Yet another breakup-inspired story) After I had gotten a new laptop because my ex ‘thing’ (they who shall not be mentioned, deleted, ironically) kept my old laptop, I failed to do one crucial thing. Wipe my iCloud and get a new password. There we were, my ex having my password and access to everything I was doing, he was blowing up all my devices with the blaring ‘Find my iPhone’ sound. To avoid having to wipe my devices, with all my pictures, memories, and school assignments, I simply turned off my devices in hopes they would stop. But no, they got smart. Eventually, when I was trying to work on a studio final on my laptop, they wiped everything from my Cloud, including what I was just working on. Causing me to have to start from scratch. This immediately caused me to idealize my digital deception-hiatus concept, where I initially created a podcast to document the loss and think of where our files are when we rely on the backup factor of it all.
Digital deception, because my technology deceived me, while it was due to another being ruining everything with a push of a button, I was betrayed by my own devices. Go figure.
Hiatus, because after a long-term relationship of insanity, control, and absence I could be reborn and create again. Not an easy task. But as I posted on my ‘art Instagram’, the hiatus is over. Much like <HELLO WORLD> (once again.)
Luckily most of my files were backed up onto various clouds, however, they were significantly different from how I remembered them, file damaged, pixelated, corrupted, and quality tarnished. And there was no chance of recovery, only restoration.
This pushed me to think of how I could effectively restore digital files but also push the damage further.
There are a few ways you can distort, alter, or corrupt files. You can datamosh them, modify the Hex code (the code that makes up a digital file) or you can create a semblance of such by compositing everything and collaging them in video effects software. For my project, I experimented with all those methods. I also aimed to let the software I was using take the reins and let it auto-transcribe the audio and partially control the narrative, because after all, isn’t that what we let technology do to us anyway?
Other sources that inspire me are the book Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto which is a book by Legacy Russell that analyzes how ‘the divide between the digital and the real world no longer exists: we are connected all the time’. A show that inspires me is also Black Mirror which is a show that depicts various exaggerated aspects of how horrific our reliance on technology could turn into.
In terms of process and methodology, as I briefly mentioned before, I utilized the following: data moshing, modifying the Hex code (through HexFiend), and creating a semblance of such by compositing everything and collaging them in video effects software such as Adobe Premiere and AfterEffects. For sound, I used some archival material from my hard drives (including the infamous deception podcast) and I also generated sound converted from video stills and images from the projects, therefore the project also stems from within and can keep rebirthing itself by generating its material.
In terms of my filming process, I started generating video material from archival material from various drives of mine, overlaid and composited them, projected then filmed them, and repeated them. I did this to create a sense of decay of material through the repetition of filming projections. After running that iteration about a dozen times, I ran the same process through superimposing these in Premiere, to create an immersive experience of the global sphere. The world I aimed to create is a world that captures you, and immerses you, almost like a black hole, like black holes of social media we use where we doom scroll for hours with no way out. That was the effect I aimed to create. I also aimed to depict the levels of media decay I saw over time, including the phenomenon of lost media, media that simply gets lost or disappears over time, and one can see I tried to mimic this by various sources getting lost in the sea of the content I included. I anticipate the skeptics and critics will question the process of such and will want the so what? So what is that these are the relics we simple people are leaving behind for anyone to find. Throughout history, we only have the artifacts of who was considered the most important in the social hierarchy because there was no World Wide Web or essentially easily accessible networks where anyone can store what they think is worth remembering, we can. So I am interested in analyzing what happens to our digital artifacts over time. They will probably be obsolete over time anyway.
Through the juxtaposition of digital imagery with the gradual degradation of repeated projections, I aim to highlight the nature of our digital memories. Much like the fleeting recollections that fade with time, these projections undergo a process of decay, mirroring the gradual erosion of our cognitive faculties. By confronting viewers with the impermanence of their digital footprints, I hope to provoke reflection on the fragility of memory and how it can be distorted and manipulated.
Central to my exploration is the theme of digital deception. In an age where misinformation proliferates unchecked across the internet, distinguishing fact from fiction has become an increasingly fraught endeavor. Through my artistic practice, I seek to challenge the viewer's perception of reality, blurring the lines between truth and fiction, authenticity and artifice. By exposing the mechanisms of deception inherent within our digital ecosystems, I aim to empower viewers to navigate this labyrinth of deceit with greater discernment and critical awareness.
So did I end up effectively resolving digital deception and coming out of my hiatus?
This creative process has been difficult and astonishing at the same time. The craftsmanship and amount of labor to capture all the imagery, set up, and endless time spent editing resulted in my personal growth of discovering my limitations and my curiosity in what I find interesting in the internet age and wanting to delve further into the web art movement.
The project evolved even more successfully than I anticipated, my perfectionism grew such that I wanted each frame of my video installation to be a painting in itself, and create a world of its own at the viewer's discretion.
The challenges I encountered were brainstorming what to do next, sometimes I felt limited by myself. I think the realization that the medium I work with has no limitations was a good wake-up call. I also think staying stimulated by seeing artists talk and seeing museum gallery installations kept me going in that I saw worlds of possibility even with simple materials.
Through my work and research, I hope to impact the Glitch Feminism conversations and any movement that discusses the Internet age.
I hope I can expand this project and eventually get into a museum gallery space, and also various online forums.
Ultimately, my thesis project serves as a meditation on the intersection of memory, technology, and truth in the digital age. By interrogating the mechanisms of media decay and manipulation, I hope to shed light on the precarious nature of our digital identities and how they shape our understanding of the world.
