Image created by Meech Boakye

In 2022, I was invited to design and teach the course Undeletable Image, a graduate and undergraduate elective in the Communication Design program at Parsons School of Design. I also taught Undeletable Image at Index Space in New York.

The course introduced students to Blockchain as a public record-keeping system for creating a collective archive. Blockchain is a permanent digital database where information cannot be erased or modified. Students co-created an archive in the form of a publication, serving as their digital, permanent legacy as a temporary community. We reflected on the following questions: What should be made permanent and visible to all? What kind of information about ourselves were we willing to archive this way? What role did an immutable database play in community building?

Blockchain exists in the context of the stock market and uses enormous amounts of energy, but this technology is just a tool in the making. In the workshop, participants reflected on the philosophical meanings and potential implications of blockchain on our lives, AFK (Away From Keyboard). The workshop began with an introduction to the history of archiving, touching on contemporary debates surrounding the power of memory institutions. We also explored alternative archival practices that challenge traditional preservation conventions. Students not only participated in the workshop but collectively built and reframed a community together.

The creation of a community archive is a way to maintain a form of authority over the representation of those who compose it. It is easy, with the digital tools we already have, to create a public archive. With the advent of blockchain, the question is: what happens when we have the power to decide what is undeletable?

→ Link to the Parsons class website, link to the Index Space class website.