This Tape will Self Destruct
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In July 2013 the BBC reported that a Russian security agency would revert from using computers to typewriters in order to avoid sensitive document leaks [1]. The following January The Guardian released a video of its employees destroying the computer equipment that stored the files provided by Edward Snowden [2]. The release of the NSA files will likely be part of this decade’s history, however the debate around mass surveillance and government secrets for the sake of national security seems more related to the Cold War than to modern day living.
This Tape Will Self Destruct explores the intersection between our current techno-political status and Cold War spy fiction. The project consists of an electronic device that prints self-destructing documents. The documents are a mixture of images and texts extracted from Cold War fictions paired up with excerpts from current secret documents, resulting in an amalgam that blurs the line between present reality and past fiction. A short amount of time after leaving the machine the documents burst into fire and their content is forever erased as the flames consume the paper. Bringing the iconic self-destructing document to reality through a functional machine re-validates Cold War fictions in the context of the contemporary values surrounding secrecy.
This project was funded by the Mexican Fund for Culture and Arts (FONCA) through its Young Creators programme.
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