Residual Memory

64 computer chips, agar, glass, bug lights, sand
18" x 10" x 420"
1993

Sixty-four discarded CPU chips from Silicon Valley, planted in an agar nutrient, became the source of flourishing biological residue. These two forms of memory - one organic, one inorganic - grew together for a number of weeks until they appeared to be one.

They are the bugs in today's machines; Not the cobwebs that caused vacuum tubes to pop in the mid-twentieth century, when the buildup of dead flies made it impossible to dispense their incredible heat and Grace Hopper popularized this phrase. These tiny microbes are the bugs, and perhaps the ghosts, in this machine, now.