https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-BEQ9c0IyPK6clZQZtMgLwU2PsA9p0Ds/view?usp=drive_link
In the winter of 2020, I collected from a trash dumpster a rather old cash register, broken to pieces and very dirty. After a few days, I started the long process of cleaning it, disassembling it, recovering all its parts, and valuing each of them. It took me almost one year to completely disassemble it and catalog all its parts: the electronic components, the mechanical devices, the screws, and reusable raw materials like copper, tin, brass, and fiberglass. While disassembling, I came to understand that each piece, once separated from the rest, acquires a distinct identity; it becomes a new entity. In contrast to its previous state in the trash, where everything was fused together as one undefined mass, each piece can now be named for what it is and used for a specific purpose. I ask myself how to work the obsolescence that makes an electronic device go into the dumpster. I also ask myself about the relationship between waste and commodity. Disassembling a black box is not only about removing its screws and seeing what’s inside, but also about understanding how it works. And if that black box is, first of all, a commodity, understanding its functioning as such means understanding the circumstances that made it possible for that object to be manufactured, sold, bought, and finally, thrown in the dumpster.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R6jE9A9W2dEYVN8DpgjPJ0d-gSNt_veX/view?usp=drive_link
Firstly, this proposal lies at the intersection of action art: approaching disassembly as a performative artwork. On another level, disassembling enables a semantic process: naming each and every part that composes it. Something as seemingly simple as the act of naming becomes much more complex when the object in question is unknown. As a black box, we neither understand how it works nor recognize the parts that comprise it. Separating and naming is the first step toward understanding its essence—not only on a technical level but also on a social and economic level—transforming it from waste into a set of resources.
The cash register found in the dumpster (like any other device) appears as the product of a myth, devoid of any apparent history, as if it had always existed. The myth fulfills its purpose when it discourages questions—not only about the origin but also about the process and function of objects and narratives.
Disassembling a black box doesn’t just consist of removing its screws and seeing what’s inside, but also of understanding how it works. And if that black box is, above all, a commodity, then understanding its function as such means understanding the circumstances that made it possible for that object to be manufactured, sold, bought, and finally, thrown in the dumpster. To dismantle the black box is, in this sense, to overcome the fetishistic logic with which electronic devices are produced as commodities.
This project is part of a body of work based on media archaeology and forensic studies of dead media, or as J. Parikka prefers to call it, zombie media—the walking dead of technology. In this link, you can access a more detailed conceptual development that explores the ideas of trash, commodity fetishism, obsolescence, and the black box, while analyzing the performativity of disassembling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo3M3OniZuE
https://drive.google.com/file/d/14VnI-NDDu8agUv0kr4tRJCd9HnFgMo-W/view?usp=drive_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eHI7oqsaEpaWMutsrs7_wFogEHZQAR_q/view?usp=drive_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hcWAsnxrae1CRmfvnmJf0UTTipfai0dc/view?usp=drive_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oOzB86YEHLFbrIA9UUex_IC7qq4ijLeV/view?usp=drive_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HWTCkAydN_wpaNFRM_Y7YrSddQunlUV9/view?usp=drive_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yo-F3N055mE-q3bnEsYvCBr-VOGn20yv/view?usp=drive_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gdNMre8KZDczfMo7bD7lVC-6gaPRDhKA/view?usp=drive_link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dJm9nZDYYaxfLUraAEUV2fqQYE1h8RG4/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mBqGqxntdDr4fOT2mCOSYZOCKnWfvZ1D/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nq_3RgwJQvOKhpYepInlanwt7z5OpMNR/view?usp=sharing