Art Exhibition Examines Internet as Fallible Memory System

A notable current in contemporary design and digital media is shifting focus from viewing the Internet as a neutral conduit to critically examining it as a dynamic, inherently fallible system of memory. This conceptual pivot is central to the exhibition titled RANDOM-ACCESS MEMORY, which showcases multimedia artists who deliberately utilize traceable online materials to construct novel artistic outputs. These creators foreground technological shortcomings, such as digital errors and system glitches, to investigate the role of chance within established digital architectures and the broader spectrum of human experience.

The exhibition is scheduled to run at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) from March 15 through September 27, 2026. Organizers confirm this is the institution's first exhibition dedicated to the Internet as both a source and a subject. The participating artists are united by a fascination with error and glitch, foregrounding imperfections to reveal chance as central to both digital systems and human existence.

Multimedia artist Claire Hentschker, based in Pittsburgh, employs techniques like the misuse of photogrammetry software alongside screenshots sourced from YouTube to fabricate three-dimensional environments riddled with visual errors. Hentschker, who has previously exhibited at the Carnegie Museum of Art and the VIA festival, often reconstructs defunct physical spaces, such as a New Jersey roller coaster from her childhood, using only found footage. Her process with photogrammetry, a visualization software typically used in archaeology, results in fragmented digital artifacts where missing data manifests as black space, highlighting how digital tools both preserve and distort the past.

Andrew Norman Wilson, a Los Angeles-based artist, directs his critical lens toward media systems by compiling watermarked stock footage into looping video installations. Wilson’s practice frequently scrutinizes the corporate and political underpinnings of the creative economy, having previously addressed entities like Google in his 2011 work, Workers Leaving the Googleplex. His piece, Impersonator (2021), follows a houseless character impersonator consuming radical conspiracy theories via a headset integrated into a stormtrooper-like costume, mimicking the automated rhythms of news cycles devoid of genuine human input.

Zhanyi Chen, a candidate for an MS in Art, Culture and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, merges scientific data with online subcultures in her research-driven pieces. Chen has created works such as the fabricated astrological system, Artificial Satellite Astrology (2023), presented as a YouTube tutorial, or by translating live satellite data into visual poetry, as seen in Astrological Concrete Poetry to Clouds Written by Weather Satellites (2020). Her artistic intervention seeks to repurpose technological infrastructures to prioritize feeling over function, listening to the small emotions leaking from the seams of systems that map, measure, and surveil.

This trend moves beyond mere digital creation, using design and visualization tools to expose the inherent contradictions and distortions embedded within the web's structure. The artists frame the Internet not as rational, but as messy and mythical, using imperfections to reveal chance as a fundamental component of digital reality.