2024
Secondhand Apple keyboards and wires, cotton thread, canvas, acylic/ 38 x 47 in
“Data Studies 3.1: Transatlantic glitch, hold shift and return (shortcuts)” work considers the complex relationship we have with technology and consumerism. The work examines the connection between land, people, extraction and consumption. The work is inspired by Legacy Russell’s Glitch Feminism. The text is placed on a black fabric painted to resemble a glitch, with fragmented text created by used Apple keyboards and cords that were procured second-hand in Detroit in January 2025. These Apple keys have been pierced and stitched to form a type of enjambment. The structured sentence leaks on multiple planes to form new thoughts that can be read throughout the work in a multidirectional way. Of the keys, many are blacked out. This in turn requires the viewer to ‘fill in’ the missing words. Legacy Russell states, “When we stand in between the boxes, things start to slip and slide; we begin to disappear. This state of opacity is a ripe error to reach toward, an urgent and necessary glitch.” Playing with this spacing technique in text placement, coupled with the thematics of Edouard Glissant’s opacity, the work plays with illegibility and absences to speak about people, our consumption and its impact on land. The deconstructed Apple controllers from the keyboard’s interiors frame the work, acting as a spine in places to support the piece. This can be read as a metaphor for the way in which our society is upheld by the invisible labour of others.