1984-Present
hand-bound books (2012)
Our world is going paperless – much of our correspondence and records, from monthly bills to medical history, are quickly becoming digital. The benefits of this shift are obvious and welcome, but the risks presented to our sense of control over our informational lives are a bit more subtle and unsettling.
Accidents happen and information is lost, as happened in Boston in 2011 when a lawyer accidentally left a hard drive containing digital copies of over one hundred different individuals' medical histories on a commuter train. Those one hundred-plus people lost control over this information in that moment. With all of our medical records turning from reams of paper to portable digital files, the potential for stories like this to increase is huge.
If my information is going to become ever more vulnerable, and I may not be able to say who sees it, I am using this project to say at least I was the first to make it public. The project is titled 1984-Present as it includes my records from the day I was born up through my most recent doctor's visit, and I will continue to publish new volumes as my medical records grow.
Accidents happen and information is lost, as happened in Boston in 2011 when a lawyer accidentally left a hard drive containing digital copies of over one hundred different individuals' medical histories on a commuter train. Those one hundred-plus people lost control over this information in that moment. With all of our medical records turning from reams of paper to portable digital files, the potential for stories like this to increase is huge.
If my information is going to become ever more vulnerable, and I may not be able to say who sees it, I am using this project to say at least I was the first to make it public. The project is titled 1984-Present as it includes my records from the day I was born up through my most recent doctor's visit, and I will continue to publish new volumes as my medical records grow.