#memoryandtechnology

[laramzp]

Overgrowing Technology (2023/24)

Technology and nature have always been perceived as opposing forces - one synthetic, calculated, and ever-advancing; the other organic, unpredictable, and cyclical. Overgrowing Technology explores this duality, creating a space where nostalgia, digital decay, and organic growth converge.

Using nine iMac G3s I reconstruct a personal and collective history of the internet, memory, and digital landscapes. Arranged in a structured 3x3 grid on a blue industrial shelf, these obsolete machines become both relics and vessels, their screens displaying a fragmented video poem in four acts. The work juxtaposes decayed technology with organic life: chrome planters overflowing with greenery, artificial grass, an aquarium, and luminous star stickers evoke childhood memories and digital dreams.

This piece is, in part, an archive of my personal relationship with the internet - a journey through wonder, obsession, disillusionment, and reconciliation. The videos within the iMacs oscillate between past and present, combining found footage, historical references, and original recordings made with handheld cameras, Coolpix, Super 8 film, and iPhones. The layered visuals are complemented by self-produced music and poetry, shaping a multisensory experience.

At the heart of the installation, a mirrored iMac shatters the grid’s uniformity, its reflective fragments inviting the viewer into a space of self-recognition and digital distortion. The work does not seek to romanticize nostalgia but rather to examine its function - how past technological landscapes linger in contemporary digital culture, how the obsolete is repurposed, and how memory itself is an evolving interface.

With Overgrowing Technology, I aim to cultivate a dialogue between the organic and the artificial, questioning whether technology can ever truly become obsolete, or if it simply transforms - overgrown by nature, absorbed into memory, and rewritten into new narratives.

[laramzp]

Cyberdelirium (2024)

Cyberdelirium is a digital poetry collection that reflects on a nostalgic vision of the 90s internet—an era defined by hope, freedom, and personal expression. This was an internet of people, not things, where users could shape their own corners of the web with a sense of individuality and creativity. The collection explores how different web aesthetics from that time influenced our perception of digital spaces and identities.

Presented on two iMac G3s within a staged artificial environment, the interactive poems invite viewers to explore the nostalgic allure of the early web while engaging with its history. Each poem is a fragment that probes the tension between human connection, expression, and the increasing corporatization of digital spaces.

Cyberdelirium asks viewers to consider how our relationship with the internet has changed over time—what we once worshiped as a tool of freedom and expression has, in many ways, become a space of identity loss and control.

Cyberdelirium underscores that the early internet was a fragmented and multifaceted space—one where individuality flourished, even as the seeds of the current, more centralized internet were being sown. The design choices are not merely decorative but serve as a commentary on how web architecture and layout shape our perception of the internet and our place within it.

The poems engage with themes of identity, connection, and memory within the digital space. The work asks viewers to consider the ways in which design shapes our online experiences and to reflect on what has been lost as the internet has evolved.

Cyberdelirium is a digital poetry collection that critically examines the evolution of the internet, exploring the complex relationships humans have with this ever-shifting space. Through themes of nostalgia, worship, and disillusionment, the poems reflect on the way the web has changed—from its early days full of promise and personal freedom to the more commodified digital environments we navigate today.

Cyberdelirium transports viewers into a digital realm that feels as though it’s flickering between past and present.

As users navigate the interactive poems, they encounter a tension between the content and the form. The retro design, with its purposeful imperfections, reflects the fractured sense of time and space within the poems, where meaning is always slipping, always just out of reach. Cyberdelirium invites users to wander through a digital landscape of memory and loss, where the act of interaction itself mirrors the experience of trying to grasp something that is already fading away.

By embracing the limitations and quirks of early web aesthetics, Cyberdelirium captures the tension between form and content, where meaning is shaped by the very structure that presents it.

each click unravels another layer of this digital world, blurring the lines between poetry and interface, between content and design.

Cyberdelirium opens up a space where users can interpret the meaning of their digital journey, navigating a landscape that is as much about the aesthetic experience as it is about the words themselves.

Cyberdelirium is a return to the chaotic abyss of digital subjectivity.

These poems, fragments of a past that was never fully real, stand in deliberate contrast to the sleek, algorithmically driven surfaces of today. They are echoes from the collapse of a collective hallucination—the remnants of an internet that once promised liberation, only to spiral into corporate-managed enclosure.

inviting viewers to wander through the ruins of the digital age. Each click is a step deeper into this disintegration—a lost future that can’t be recovered. In this space, nostalgia and estrangement intertwine, as every fragment of the past dissolves into the digital mist.

Exhibited at LEGAL Club, Munich in October 2024