Computer is Dreaming
Nancy Mauro-Flude

Medium: Mixed media
1 x custom-built computer embedded on black wood (45x103cm)
[Operating System: GNU/Linux, Distribution: Debian]
1x video projection (output of the computer scanning it’s internal memory) infinite loop.
1x Bond paper & glitter.


As if the computer is dreaming, the viewer witnesses the flashes of the computer’s life history in the adjunct video. Dreaming during sleep is not a static homogenous state, but rather a progression through various states with extremely unique characteristics.

To make the work the computer hardware was extracted from the bounds of its traditional vessel of a tower like container. The components that make up the computer, are spread out into their modular parts and embedded into wooden platform. This opening action is replicated in the software via a set of non-standard command line tools from GNU/Linux repository. Via an executable code the computer is instructed to look into its hard-disk directory (/dev/mem). Mem is a character device file that is an image of the main physical memory of the computer, in practice it may be accessed, for example, to examine the operating system for previously stored information that exist as magnetic data records. In the artwork all of the accumulated data is scanned and an output of the hard disks veracity is rendered as digital video output.