The Institute of Desktop Archeology

Katie Rose Pipkin

Twenty artists have been invited to build work into the structure of desktop space, having each been given a computer to live with and alter as they wish over the course of 2 months. For some, this may manifest as a single unique program. Others may construct a browser history, a mystery novel in hyperlinks. Still others will perhaps fill music libraries and picture folders and chat logs with the detritus of a life lived.

These machines have an inherent body, a personhood that is built of daily use. Every tool–from a hammer to a violin–comes to say something about the hand of its user. These desktop spaces have become such tools of use, but also function as terminals to social spaces, work environments, and homes built of play and care. There is an externalization of person into machine: the incidental curation of living-space that says so much about those living there. We have become intrinsically linked, as individuals, with our devices. It is no surprise that we should share the same terminology for our fundamental building blocks of selfhood and storage: memory.

This is a project about the archeology of personhood through a habit system that retains the shape of those patterns.

Artists: Zonodon Andersonocerous Blair Bogin Scott Gelber Daniel Hipolito Travis Korte Grau-Pomme Lackey Kevin Mcnamee-Tweed Zach Ossefort Marlon Paine Olivia Pepper and Dave Cole Katie Rose Pipkin Loren Schmidt Rachel Simone Weil Andrew Yoder Vidkidz (Zak Loyd and Melanie Clemmons)