Destroying Data: Forgetting In The Age of Big Data

Destroying Data: Forgetting In The Age of Big Data was a collaborative project with myself and computer scientist Dr. Ryan Johnson at the Small Engine Gallery in Spring 2016. The installation was comprised of 47,000 meters of LTO magnetic storage tape, holding 83,000 GB of information. LTO magnetic tape is the material used to store information gathered by companies such as Facebook and Google and stored in data storage centers around the world. The tape was installed in the two room gallery and easily filled the space. After Dr. Johnson’s lecture the tape was torn from the ceiling and destroyed by the attendees of the show. In the age where all of our online actions are meticulously recorded and stored at data centers, the show celebrates the fragility in human remembering and the creativity present in the invention of memory.