The Contents of an Untitled Folder :
“The Contents of an Untitled Folder” is an ongoing narrative multimedia project exploring my relationship with my cellphone, the internet, and other users. Examining intersecting themes of loneliness, the uncanny, and surveillance through analog black and white photography, hyperlinked prose, and looping video and audio.
Thank you to j. harris salzberg, who is responsible for this projects impetus (supplemental documents can be found here) as well as the wonderfully written piece introducing and concluding “terms_of_my_service”
This current device exists as the most recent iteration in a series I have had since I was a teen. Each has in turn grown and changed with me. For years it has been the last thing I see before bed, and what wakes me in the morning. A device which sits closer to me than any friend, family, or lover I have ever had. Held in my pocket and separated from my skin by only the thickness of my clothes. This phone, my phone, is not unique, it is designed to mirror those to its right and left in the production line. It is inherently lifeless to begin with, as it is removed from the package. I imbue it with my own reflection, my memories, and conversations. In turn, it reflects back. Within the device, it chooses to represent my avatar in place of itself on a GPS app displaying the locations of me and my friends. The device masks itself and presents me, its user, in an uncanny reflection.