We spend a significant part of our lives in the digital sphere, so it makes sense that the memories of our personal or even entirely online relationships are increasingly residing on the servers of digital platforms. It is no coincidence that within the software of the big technology companies, we now have control over who has access to our online data after our death. Of course, such a provision cannot be complete, not to mention the fact that even the most careful planning can be a disaster: files can be corrupted, lost in a virus attack, or even the social media platforms that used to store photos, messages or videos of loved ones can be taken down. In their place, error messages remain – like tombstones of memories.
Emese Kádár’s solo exhibition Not found explores issues of access to digitally stored memories and, through her work, new forms of contemporary mourning rituals, blending the aesthetics of classical gravestones with the challenges of contemporary memory culture and the experience of mourning. The patterns and language of the weavings evoke both traditional funerary symbols and the simplistic visual language of emojis, exploring the extent to which the almost childlike communication tools of social media can express the complex swirls of the experience of grief and loss.
The installation, which fills the entire space, is both a monument to fading memory and a representation of the digital barriers that can stand between us and our lost loved ones – while we once ached for destroyed photos and abandoned trinkets, today we can be struck by unplugged software, forgotten passwords and cancelled subscriptions.