Save Your Digital Data
Mobileskino
10 min, black and white, 16 mm (double8 film), non-cut
Switzerland 2005
The projects by the art collective MOBILESKINO are located in the realm between digital and analog media, professional and trash, institutionalized and independent art. In their research in the fields of interactive environments they combine mechanical and electronic technologies and build machines and installations.
SAVE YOUR DIGITAL DATA deals with the fragility and transience of a digital archive. For this project MOBILESKINO collected digital data (DVD, DVCam, mini-disc, CD-ROM, emails, etc.) and transferred it to double 8 mm film in their laboratory. For the transfer of digital formats they analyzed and transcoded the signal of sound and picture to receive an analog output (via YC and composite) and visualized the outcome using various imaging techniques. This output was captured on film.
“Digital data saved by the SYDD process will last for decades as an abstract moving image that, for the time being, is not possible to decode.” (Florian Olloz)
MOBILESKINO is a collective of artists, animation filmmakers, film technicians, and sound designers based in Basel, Switzerland. Its members are Florian Olloz, Gilbert Engelhard, David Pfluger, and Roland Schmidt.
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Reference
Verena Kuni, “F (ANALOGITAL),” in Post-Digital Culture, eds. Daniel Kulle et al. (Berlin: 2015), http://www.post-digital-culture.org/kuni.