by Jamal Stone
“Don’t copy that floppy!” A now-hilarious battle cry from 1992 emblematic of technology’s breakneck pace. Today, floppy disks are obsolete doodads, uncovered only when clearing out one’s desk space. Technology doesn’t look back. Go ahead and copy one.
But no one told us not to paint on floppy disks. Enter Nick Gentry, a British artist who turns the ancient media-storage device into his paintings’ canvases.
His works collect a range of floppy disks—different colors, sizes, signs of wear from use–and arranges them into cells. The cells serve as a backdrop for portraits that occasionally incorporate elements of the floppy disks. The tiny orb of metal will become an eye, for instance.
Digital Montage #2
These works recall Chuck Close‘s use of tiny “pixels” to build photo-realistic portraits, or the modern artifacts of the objet trouvé movement. Many of the floppies still have marker ink on their labels.
Gentry encourages others to send in their own floppies, as a way of documenting history through found art. His work was once found, too. To gauge interest, he started his career by “leaving [his] paintings in the street.”
The portraits also confront us–how quickly utilities fall into desuetude! What will be the next to go? The pearlescent sheen of CD-ROMs holds plenty of artistic potential. And where did those discarded CRT televisions end up?
A few years back at a musty hotel, the receptionist took the time to reconnect to dial-up internet. The familiar beeps and whirs—”America Online”—filled the room. “What is that awful techno music?” a kid in the lobby asked aloud as he peered into his smart phone.
Gentry’s artwork pulls back the curtains of nostalgia and shows us our abandoned past, like those cardboard boxes full of essential papers that grandma won’t throw out. As our “digital footprints” grow to Sasquatch-sized proportions, now might be a good time to consider the flimsiness (floppiness?) of technology.
Visit Nick Gentry’s site here.
