Italian version
.art
26.02.03 Data Diaries, the memory of data.
Resuming his one-year-old 'Ram Project', Cory Arcangel has made available his new work, commissioned by Turbulence.org and named Data Diaries. Confirming this artist's passion for the epicurean applied 'low-fi software' techniques, this work consists in showing, day after day, the memory of his computer translated (that is, 'masked' as a Quicktime file) to minimalist multicolor animations and rough sounds. Once again a reckoning with the machine, a confrontation with the data housed in its temporary memory (the RAM), a different interpretation of its intimate remembrances. The data hidden in the movement of pixels and tympanic membranes were allocated in a concealed zone of the tiny and roomy memory chips and now resurrect, immortalized in a picture certainly more similar to their essence than to our feelings. In a brief introduction, Alex Galloway analyzes Arcangel's work, praising its wide scope and its istinctual realization. Comparing his data conversion to the Carnivore project, Galloway glorifies it for its resemblance to 'digital dreams', while Arcangel says it feels like the machine is 'screaming and choking at the same time'. The strange language expressed in the video looks somewhat familiar and the strange sounds are a deja-vu. Either the machine or our perception of it want to tell us something...