About Dump Site:

Dump Site is stewarded by Ven Qiu and Dorothy Tang, with Robin O on site design.

Dump Site is a submission-based repository of deleted media. This virtual landfill is a multimedia mass of files that were recently deleted and almost erased. What we throw away is a candid echo of what we keep close: projects, secrets, gripes, inspirations, loved ones. Dump Site is a public diary, a screenshot confessional. Conjuring memory through the lens of discard, these second-hand files evoke a sentimental gaze toward desktop debris.

Gathering in our hard drive, our files trace the contours of our relationships, work, and identity. To contend with storage capacity, we take on the duty of deletion (some more than others). We trash files that feel irrelevant, reserving memory for potentially relevant files in the future. In this way, deleting is both a pragmatic act and a curatorial one. Archivists in our own right, we prune our hard drive to assemble a personal history. The trash folder provides a fantasy of complete erasure: files vaporized with a simple click and drag.

When we pull files out of the trash folder and re-signify them as artifacts of history, we reinstate their thingness. Dump Site enlists visitors to put their own trash files in context with others, building a collective silhouette of a greater digital narrative. Pooling digital trash enables us to reminisce across desktops. Through the creation of a trash archive, we enrich digital files with metadata surrounding the conditions of deletion and transform deleted files into a tangible substrate for cultural memory.

Deletion occurs across a spectrum of privacy: within our personal devices, online communities, and cultural institutions. Dump Site preserves media within this spectrum, and researches how policy changes and mass deletion events interface with these degrees of privacy. As we steward this archive, we ask: How does digital trash reflect cultural memory and fill the gaps? How does archiving trash and embracing mess expand archival practice? What are the mechanics that drive deletion and how do they affect collective access to public information?This digital trash heap metabolizes deleted files into archaeological artifacts. Dump Site has three goals: to research the conditions of deletion; make mess out of archival practice; and preserve artifacts of digital cultural memory that are removed against our will.

Collecting Areas:

As an archival project, Dump Site welcomes all file types (text, image, document, sound, video, web) of any subject matter. We are interested in trash that is confessional, relational, and culturally impactful. The trash that we are interested in can be understood through our three collecting areas:

Personal Computing: This is media that was removed from personal devices by the owner from their laptops, phones, tablets, hard drives, etc. Personal computing trash reflects our private digital lives—our screenshots, drafts, voice notes, unfinished projects, e-tickets, video outtakes and more.

Social Networking: This is media that was removed from privately owned digital public spaces such as social media platforms, blogs, forums, video and music hosting sites. Social networking trash sits somewhere between the personal, potentially sentimental, trash we have and the larger institutional trash that we have little control over. Social networking trash recovers moments of digitally-mediated connection, such as deleted forum posts, social media comments, discussions within community-driven encyclopedias, fan-created content, and more.

Organizational Resource: This is media that was removed from public organizations-- government sites, universities, libraries, and other pillars of cultural heritage. Institutional trash indicates the structural forces that govern deletion, such as policy changes and censorship. The removal of institutional resources points to the state’s encroachment on people’s access to information and control of our own narratives. Institutional trash includes public information related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), educational materials, books about queer/trans narratives and people of color, and more.

About Us:

Ven Qiu is a memory worker and creative technologist based in the Bay Area, co-parented by Chinese immigrants and the internet. They draw from their work as a tattooer, archivist, and researcher to explore the textures of memory and archival practice. Their work most often involves oral history, field recording, body-art, scent, and born-digital media. Qiu also moonlights as a meme admin.

Dorothy Tang is an archivist interested in translating memories and emotions through a variety of mediums, such as oral history, digital expression, and scent. Their work is informed by community archival practices, which center collective ownership, reflection and sense making. Their research interests include: information and power; sensory-based archival activation; and nontraditional repositories.

Robin O is an anti-disciplinary artist who works with text, sound, and image. With a CS major and Interactive Media arts minor, they mobilize the critical archival practices and make engaging with archival collections immersive and affective.