OBJECTS

Virtual Archeology

YEAR

2018 -

MATERIALS

3-D printed plastic



The recording of culture, through practices that include writing and object making, has been an activity present throughout history, in all civilizations. We are now in an age where a large portion of our culture and its documentation are virtual. However digital data is vulnerable to being changed or even erased, potentially making the narrative it corroborates untrustworthy. In a possible future where our civilization doesn’t exist anymore and our virtual space is not accessible, all that remains of us would be a fragmented account of our reality.

This project aims to collect digital data that once had cultural significance, but has over time been forgotten. Examples include the original WordArt and WindowsXP Glitch, now existing only in few Google image searches. Through 3D-printing, the most direct form of translating virtual to physical, this collected digital data is then “recorded” on historic vases. These are chosen based on their original method of documentation, be it writing, painting or the shape itself, which have a clear link to the type of information imposed onto them.

Updating these vases with new data transforms them from objects of the past to agents of contemporaneity. The act of re-contextualising the digital to the physical becomes a form of cultural preservation, providing future civilizations with a record of the virtual era.

Terracotta Lentoid Flask x Spinning Wheel Of Death
(1600-1050 B.C.)(2002 - 2015)