Been thinking about the digital world we live in. Every time I get on the train I look around and see practically every person engaging in some way with their phone: listening to music, playing games, checking email, some even make phone calls. And I’m just the same – that little screen demanding my attention. FOMO – Fear of missing out (Could your FOMO Kill you?) The challenge is stay in the present moment.
Anyways, it got me thinking about digital information and how it’s brought to us. I know it’s ones and zeros at some level but I still can’t get my head around how all the information is stored inside the device. I have to imagine billions of minuscule ones and zeros all in a tiny container. How can I be so close to technology but have no real idea how it works? You try and look inside but there’s really nothing to see.
I found one way to illustrate this idea, to take a USB microscope and to record in close up detail the computer screen itself. No image as such but just the screen pixels. And what’s it looking at? Well, itself – the screen image of the output of the microscope looking at what the screen output of the microscope is looking at. A nice feedback loop. I used to do this with video cameras back in the 1980s by pointing the camera at the monitor output for the camera – an easy psychedelic effect.
Here’s some examples:
See more of my work at www.marktamer.co.uk
