AN4-STASi4 is a new type of computer that risks drowning itself through its use. It raises awareness of your data consumption by pumping water into a tank in front of the screen every time the computer storage is used. Without proper data management, eventually, the water level will become critical, overflowing onto the electronics and destroying the device itself. This extreme interaction proposal aims to counter the common perception of data storage as something ephemeral, limitless, and without consequence in a very direct and tangible way.

We started this project by researching on-demand services. These types of services offer content instantly whenever needed or wanted. This type of relationship between consumer and product changes our understanding of availability, accessibility, and ownership. We used hoarding as a metaphor to further explore these values. What, for example, is the difference between collecting and hoarding? And why is one perceived as positive and the other as negative?

Hoarding is when someone has an obsessive difficulty in throwing things away because of a strong perceived need to save or own items. Because this behavior can generate emotional, social, and health risks, it is clinically described as a mental disorder. Within physical space, hoarding is uncommon and perceived as something bad. In contrast, we found that it is very common to hoard in digital space and that it is also not (yet) seen as something problematic. Just think about all the photos on your phone, or all the tabs that are still open in your browser.

Digital space makes it very easy to hoard because storage space is easily accessible, abundant, and cheap. And because the behavior can take place within an invisible cloud or on a private device, it isn’t easily apparent from the outside. Therefore, it seems to be without consequence. However, although digital hoarding doesn’t pose any direct physical danger, it can still cause emotional and even social stress. On top of that, the power consumption of data storage can generate indirect dangers through its harm on the planet.

We wanted to highlight the possible dangers of our digital hoarding behavior by creating an interface that would give a tangible representation of it and that would return some of the dangers associated with hoarding in physical space.

2020

selected for Dutch Design Week 2021

shown at Museum Arnhem during Media Art Festival Arnhem 2024