aₚ=tF²
Štromajer‘s latest series on memory and dead tech: 101.72 MB – electrical machines, computers, phones and other digital devices and their parts that once produced, processed, transmitted and stored his net ⁿᵒⁿ⁻art works (motherboards, sound and graphics cards, disks and magnetic tapes, fans, keyboards, chips, processors, cables, etc.), but are now partially or completely dead, no longer performing their basic functions, carrying only a physical memory of them.
These dead machines are part of the author’s intimate history, the memory which serves to mislead, betray and misrepresent, instead of describing the past. A false memory, however, does not offer an authentic image of the past it speaks of, but always only a misleading, deceptive, fictional and distorted, falsified image.
Like software, hardware is also changing rapidly, continuously and inexorably, losing its functionality, purpose and, consequently, its content – the (non-)art itself. The author’s basic premise here is that (non-)art is not only hidden in the concept, the idea, i.e., not only in the nominal and declared, but equally also in the tools and machines that produce it. That is why the parts of machines, now more or less dead, are full of intimate memories that have faded and stories that have died.
The series is part of Štromajer‘s de-digitalization processes over several years, from the deletion of his net ⁿᵒⁿ⁻art works back in 2011 to the present.
The only way to liberate ourselves from feudal techno-capitalism is through collective and total de-digitalization.
The title of the work indicates the amount of now deleted net ⁿᵒⁿ⁻art works (101.72 MB of files) produced and processed by these machines and their parts between 1996 and 2007: intima.org/ex.
de-digitalization ≠ re-analogization
20 items / dimensions:
· 52 × 52 × 6 cm (6 x)
· 37 × 37 × 6 cm (8 x)
· 27 × 27 × 6 cm (2 x)
· 12 × 12 × 3 cm (4 x)
(dead objects under clear glass, white wooden frames)
intima • Igor Štromajer 