This project is the last in a series of explorations on the topic of death and the digital. It evolved from my previous project that uses a computer monitor shell.
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This shell washed up on the sidewalk a few blocks from my apartment. A shell is a former home, a remnant of a creature’s existence. What or who used to inhabit this space?
In a way, everyone did. Computers are portals to the internet, a magical land replete with personal profiles and accounts–our online homes. We live there just as much as we live in brick-and-mortar structures. When we stop living, these homes become ghost-like symbols for how we presented ourselves to the world.
I have witnessed instances in which online homes (Facebook profiles in particular) become memorials for a loved one who has passed. A common symbol for “remembrance” is the tying of a string around one’s finger. I use string to remember people and places that are important to me by making friendship bracelets. With this in mind, I stitched string throughout the computer shell to designate it as a space for remembrance.
I chose colors and made patterns that look like rays of light, since computer monitors are light-filled when they are “alive.” The geometric shapes I created look mathematical and graph-like (appropriate for a computational machine) while still seeming hand-made and personal.
