The Tangibility of My Phone Gallery

By Mona Abolghasemi

“The Tangibility of My Phone Gallery” is an exhibit that transforms the intangible clutter of digital photos into a physical reality. In this project, I focus on 24 months out of a five-year period, during which approximately 9,900 photos were collected on my smartphone. I use empty folders or boxes (without real photos in them). Each box shows a month from these two years. The size of each box changes depending on how many photos I took that month – more photos mean a thicker box. Every box has a label showing the year, the month, and how many photos it represents.

Featured image of the project The Tangibility of My Phone Gallery Complementary image of the project The Tangibility of My Phone Gallery Complementary image of the project The Tangibility of My Phone Gallery

Metaphor used:

The folders in this project are like a metaphor. They represent how digital photos from our phones would look if they were real, physical photos. This helps us see and understand the impact of our digital photo collections.

Intended Meaning:

This project aims to make this invisible digital waste visible and tangible, bring to the forefront the idea of digital wastage. Just because it’s not physically taking up space, it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Source:

Personal dataset of approximately 14,500 photos collected over five years from my smartphone.