#obsoletetech

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 The videos within the iMacs oscillate between past and present, combining found footage, historical references, and original recordings made with handheld cameras, Coolpix, Super 8 film, and iPhones.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.

A Sketch in Digital Decay (2024)

This hanging collage frame is a preliminary sketch for a larger installation, a prototype that condenses the core themes of my work- obsolete interfaces, digital artifacts, and the uncanny persistence of technological nostalgia.

Constructed from fragments of past interfaces and decommissioned digital aesthetics, this piece explores the tension between the ephemeral and the archival. The materials - printed circuits of lost data and reflections of outdated media - are arranged in layers, mirroring the way memory accumulates in digital space and windows open on desktop devices. Like corrupted files or glitched screen captures, the surfaces distort, refract, and fragment, resisting a singular interpretation.

Rather than junking my data tapes, I decided to create some art for my office. Bender from Futurama seemed appropriate. twitter.com/dylanparker/st…

— Dylan Parker (@dylanparker) January 5, 2012