Detail of “On Computable Numbers”
Paper
Framed dimensions 10.4” x 14.2”
2006

All of the text removed except for the 1s and 0s from Alan Turing’s 33 page essay “On Computable Numbers.”

Can emotion be encoded into data?

The Internet has obliterated distance, making communication instant and outside of time; the digital camera has permanently altered our capacity for remembering; and digital storage has created a new plight of collective memory in which history is stored only as a series of transient ones and zeros floating through the ether space of the Internet. Computers have become machines for remembering. While in a computer, memory refers to digital retention of data for some interval of time, memory in people is the capacity to retain an impression of past experiences. This subtle difference is essentially what makes us human, and it is this distinction that lies at the core of my work.

While acknowledging that computers embody efficiency with their universal binary language, I manually execute information, bit by bit, to explore the differences between human and technological expression. I translate personal memory into structured and sterile artifacts while maintaining the human elements of pathos and imperfection. This act of translation is cathartic and meditative: with each piece, a memory is broken apart, processed, and reassembled. While the form of the initial memory is transformed, its message and emotion are preserved

'This is how I cope with my neuroses.', still from digital video of artist blinking binary, 5:46 (looped), March, 2004.