Archaeology of Silicon2022
3D scanner texture printed on fabric in LED lightbox
AR filter specific to the piece
60 x 90 cm.
Mobile Store / Archaeology of Silicon adopts a speculative perspective on the future, allowing us to step back and describe the present as if enough years had passed for these mobile phone stores to exist only as remnants. The image thus presents fragments, traces of the architecture of a Mobile Store (located in the Lavapiés neighborhood of Madrid) arranged as the ruins of a bygone era. Each small piece contains a part of the larger picture: logos of major mobile technology companies, sections of the storefront displaying a wide array of smartphone models for sale, or photographs of broken screens.
The piece also engages with digital technology: it activates when viewed through an augmented reality filter on a smartphone. Using an Instagram filter, the app recognizes the image of this piece and reconstructs the architecture of the store on the screen of our device, pieced together from its own remains. This reconstruction encourages a reflection on the urban and social transformations brought about by digitalization. The virtual reconstruction of the store, visible only through a mobile device, also highlights how our perception of physical space is increasingly mediated by digital technologies and our dependence on these devices to interact with our surroundings. This interaction carries a certain irony: the same smartphone used to activate the piece is also the object that centralizes and organizes our lives.