Guido Segni's Bot Maps Sahara on Tumblr Over 50 Years
Guido Segni's artwork "A Quiet Desert Failure" debuted at the latest edition of The Wrong, a digital art biennial. The piece consists of a bot that scrapes images of the Sahara Desert from Google Maps and posts one to Tumblr every thirty minutes, aiming to complete a full mapping of the desert over fifty years. The work critiques assumptions about the future accessibility of digital tools and content, highlighting the rapid obsolescence of platforms like Tumblr and Google Maps. The desert's ever-changing nature underscores the futility of long-term digital archiving, as Segni responds to information overload with a slow process of saturation and desertification.
Key facts
- Guido Segni created 'A Quiet Desert Failure'.
- The work debuted at The Wrong digital art biennial.
- A bot extracts Sahara images from Google Maps and posts to Tumblr every 30 minutes.
- The mapping aims to be completed over 50 years.
- The piece questions future accessibility of digital tools and content.
- Tumblr, Google Maps, and the Web may not exist in 50 years.
- The Sahara Desert is constantly changing due to weather.
- Segni responds to information overload with saturation and desertification.
Entities
Artists
- Guido Segni
Institutions
- The Wrong
- Google Maps
- Tumblr
- Artribune
Locations
- Sahara Desert