Tech Mining | The ever updating digital culture keeps exponentially producing hardware, software, and data, tapping into raw resources, feeding on energy, taking some space. Often they go very fast from valuable to being considered as disposable becoming waste. Then what should happen to them ? Benjamin Gaulon’s take on Media archeology suggests that hardware and data can be recycled and repurposed, but at some point it is not possible to extend... their life anymore. The only thing left is their brutal materiality.
Digitalrecycling addresses the accumulation of unused data and digital trash sharing. With Bit by Bit (BbB) each file produces a final glimmer before disappearing for good. BbB reduces the data accumulated on the internet, bit by bit.
Stemming from the idea of tech mining Ultimate Waste, Internet Compression and L'Essence Même by Benjamin Gaulon, transform devices into inert matter by shredding them. The resource takes the front stage, the design is abolished, the utility is gone, still, a plastic object is present in the form of ultimate waste. It takes some space, it can still leak pollutants, it is bland in the form, and in the color, this is what is left when we are done with hardware.
