The installation touches on the themes of selfie-culture, and the fear of permanently losing the digital records of our lives due to technical failures, impermanence of data storage, or simply because of the obsolescence of the old digital file formats. Even with such compulsive overproduction of the images of ourselves, we might end up with nothing but the blank memories of our past. Even the data on ourselves will eventually fade away…

The installation consists of a display that prompts you to take a selfie on your phone, which it renders in digital particles on a large 1×1 meter screen. Then a moment later, your face scatters and falls apart and the real black gravel starts to fall at the bottom of the screen in perfect synchrony with the digital simulation. Gradually, a dark mound builds up at the foot of the construction.

Supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, National Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw, Polish Cultural Institute New York and Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Washington, D.C

Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.