Digitocene

Winner | Open Call for Design Projects | Zürich Design Biennale · Old Botanical Garden, 2025

Today, we excavated another strange artifact from the Digital Epoch layers (circa 2025). A thin, rectangular object whose surface was once reactive to touch. Early analysis suggests it was a primary channel for cognitive extension - a machine humans of the time relied on to store memory, simulate connection, and mediate reality itself. We further encountered cryptic words: memes, selfies, vlogs. Were these rituals? Forms of self-preservation? Methods of connection? Their deeper meaning remains unclear.

A paradox: why did this past society externalize its own capacities into fragile, fading machines? Records indicate that this species surrendered vital functions - perception, memory, even emotion - to these vulnerable devices. Weak traces suggest an existence of constant interaction with these objects, a time when individuals were side-by-side and incomplete without them.