We once took care to save traces of ourselves—on paper, on compact discs, on tape recordings, or on slide film. As time went on, we started neglecting these marks and what made them, often forgetting their existence. Now, in the overabundance of what we make, much information becomes dormant for long periods of time, and the objects that store it gradually deteriorate. A faded image, a set of files bonded by humidity, a CD chipped and cracking. The hours seem to flow on, drop by drop, slowly transforming these objects and what they once preserved.

Acting as a metaphor for our overcrowded digital surroundings and subconscious minds, Sébastien Cliche’s installation investigates what happens to memory that is subject to becoming corrupted or inaccessible over time. In a space reminiscent of a data processing centre, various forms of obsolete media are put to the test as they are laid down in basins or filtered by liquids. Although information is seemingly fated to undergo the same disappearance as the objects that store it, the ongoing attempts to distill or retrieve what is left suggest the possibility of new data being generated from the transformation of matter itself.

Sébastien Cliche thanks the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec for its financial support.