​

The obsolescence of once important technologies and our relationship with them provides an ongoing theme for my artwork.

​

This work began when I inherited forty years worth of slides from my father. When I realized that our daughter’s wedding pictures were on floppy discs. I knew that each floppy disk, like every slide my father took represented a time, a place, and a person - with images, documents, and memories. Much like my great-grandmother’s quilts made from clothing scraps; each scrap of cloth holds memories of the person who wore the garment. I began by creating quilts using floppy discs, and slides. The buttons my mother, grandmother and I accumulated provide another layer of meaning.I felt like I was stitching my family back together.

 

In this time of escalating technologies, the thrill of ‘THE NEW’ can cause us to forget the once vital relationship we had with the old technologies. The idea that something can exist and be vital, then suddenly not be important and begin to disappear, raises questions about the ontology of objects. If an object’s existence is only relative to their relationship to humans, then do we have an obligation to them or to the history with which they are endowed? I seek to frame the once important connection we humans had with these older technologies as a memorial to the images, documents, and data stored on them by holding hostage these kidnapers forever frozen in time. If it is not obsolete now, it will be soon.