The Habitat of Data
Your data is a physical, valuable thing. The cloud where it is stored is not an abstract, invisible place. Your data lives in real buildings on machines behind a physical lock. Who has the keys and why do they want to have the data live there?
If our route to work, the last thing we browsed for or the artist that we listen to most was of no value, that information would most likably dissolve in the void, not to be ever seen again. So it has value, because our personal information is captured and stored by American big tech companies to raise enormous profits and apply pressure to individuals and societies. You could say that by gathering and exploiting your data, they also give it a reason to exist. Now another entity, government or business has control over a copy of our past selves and when it will resurface.
However, imagine if your data would have a will of its own. In what way do you think it would like to live on? RE:GISTER explores what would happen if data knows the infrastructure it is being held in and how it would use it to communicate to the outside world, choosing someone else to have agency over it.
RE:GISTER
An old, bulky computer moves down and rises again in a metal frame in front of you, as it makes a full body scan. You just registered on the computer, because when you walked into the SFF Building, you saw help messages on old CRT screens by an earlier visitor asking to be released so they can feed their dog. In order to recover them, you have to log into the system.
When the machine is done scanning you, it suddenly ejects a piece of paper. There you find the information of the person who was asking you for help. Now their data is deleted from the computer and only exists in the printed form in your hand.
Walking through the rest of the exhibition you take another look at the CRT screens. Now there is a copy of you desperately asking strangers for help, because at this time, they should be drinking coffee with your favourite colleague.
