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Proposal
Avatar Necropolis
Every second of every day, thousands of avatars are born
online. Most are eventually abandoned as the internet evolves and rendering
technologies improve. Yet avatars do not simply cease to exist. Idle code, they're
neither dead nor alive. Avatars deserve better than this. I propose to build
them a necropolis: a city of hard-disk catacombs where they can permanently be
laid to rest.
Preparing avatars for offline burial will be simple. When an
avatar has reached the end of its functional life, the person who spawned it
will capture it in a screenshot, to be uploaded to www.avatarnecropolis.net.
Checking a box releasing copyright in perpetuity, the avatar's human
next-of-kin will receive a death certificate by email. This service will be
free.
On a monthly basis, avatars will be compressed and stored on a sixty gigabyte external hard disk by the Avatar Necropolis site administrator. When full, the disk will be added to the catacombs, sealed off in concrete. Each smooth white portland cement catacomb will be a six-foot-tall tower, one foot wide and one foot deep, with six slim niches to hold six hard disks. Over the years, the necropolis will grow to include many towers, laid out in a grid. stacked atop one another. Eventually the grid may be as vast as Manhattan, a stepped skyline visible for miles. The catacombs will begin, however, with a single concrete tower situated outside an arts institution, where the public can pay their respects as they would at any tomb. (Preliminary discussions are already underway with several candidates, including Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.)
I am seeking a $2,000 Rhizome Commission to cover the cost
of the initial one-pillar necropolis infrastructure. The primary expense will
be construction of the tower: the cost of concrete and hard disks. The concrete
structure will be built in six keyed one-cubic-foot segments. The pouring will
likely be done, under my supervision with structural consultation by architect
Brad Terrell, at Mary Collins Concrete in Northern California. Refurbished
drives will be purchased online at the lowest possible price. Given the
website's simplicity, the cost of production and maintenance will be minimal. I
will design the site and collateral material - such as death certificates -
with engineering assistance from programmers at StartMobile.net, a company that
has assisted me with online projects in the past. To encourage broad and
diverse participation, the project will be widely publicized, using my
extensive network of media contacts, through both the blogosphere and
traditional news agencies. Avatar Necropolis will also greatly benefit from
exposure on the Rhizome website, and throughout the Rhizome community.
Burial of the dead is considered by anthropologists to be
one of the signal advances of Homo sapiens. Tombs are one of our first
technologies. Avatar Necropolis is a preliminary step toward advancing this
technology as we tentatively speciate onto the internet.