A digital photomontage triptych I created in a digital art class at Elon University exploring the oddities of dreams, especially the way our minds can make us feel as if we are both at home and in a foreign place at the same time. All photographs used to create this montage are my own. 

This site specific work consisted of vinyl decals reminiscent of markers on a map that urged the audience to be present. They were placed throughout the Elon art building.

Hoarding is defined by the American Psychological Association (APA) as a psychological disorder that is characterized by one having a persistent difficulty to discard one’s possessions despite them having minimal to no value or use. We see the worst-case scenario of hoarding on TLC’s show Hoarders, but neither the APA nor TLC have thought to include hoarding in the digital realm. 

I believe that the digital age has made it nearly impossible to not be a hoarder. Compared to when photographs could only be kept in their physical printed form, it is now second nature to keep thousands of photographs or documents that we don’t even want to look at again. Instead of needing an extra room in your house for all your boxes of photos, all you need now is a new hard drive. You think you’re organized because there is no physical clutter, but as soon as you try to find your favorite photograph you realize it is almost worse than digging through boxes of prints because there are thousands and thousands of files that are irrelevant. 

My work represents a small portion of the photographs on my hard drive. After sorting through over 20 folders, I found that only 10% were worth keeping, as represented by the colorized portion of this print. The rest were all clutter – blurry images, duplicates, or bad memories – and make it harder to find the good ones. Why do we hoard these images, what function do they serve, and at what point does this hoarding impact our lives?