A Bit in the Abyss

metaLAB

Project sponsored by The Eagle Leasing Company.

In partnership with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Harvard University’s metaLAB has created a unique, multisensory experience that embodies the Internet Archive’s mission: to store all of the world’s knowledge in digitized form. Inside a shipping container, mirrors will reflect the the blinking indicator lights of a “Petabox,” the digital storage server designed by the Internet Archive for the networked curation of digital data. The light reflecting in all directions and the audible processing of data will create a confusing, prismatic, infinite effect of light and sound. The design and title of the project riffs on the French phrase“mise-­en­-abyme,” which translates as “to place in the abyss,” a position the participant will feel inside the container. The phrase evokes the existential and aesthetic condition of information storage; as we digitize recorded knowledge, it falls into a virtual abyss, one of abstraction.