Digital Bags

Digital Bags

2015
Computer keys and cloth
Dimensions variable
Installation detail

I produced twenty bags by gluing computer keys onto black, handmade cotton bags, after having borrowed the design from the ‘tourist bags’ commonly seen around Cape Town markets. I titled them Digital Bags. All identical in their material and form, the bags are given flexibility by their smaller computer keys, allowing them to be manipulated. They also provide additional meanings by distorting expectations of their familiar usage. When displayed, they infer mobility and displacement – my displacement as a migrant. The intention behind them is one of permanent movement, reminiscent of my impermanency as a foreign citizen between two homes – between two spaces – and of the ‘netizen’ who moves between being online and offline.