The Cups is a locational installation that confronts its audience with understated aesthetics and a concealed message. It pleases through visual appeal, disclosing its text only to a few. The orientation of the cups themselves mimics the open/closed states of binary data as stored digitally, encoding specific personal data. This content is historical; it has been compulsively collected during my lifetime and is no longer of use.

Some people feel an undeniable need to collect. Sometimes it is a specific kind of object that they collect, while other times it is all manner of things simply accumulated. Such undirected collecting is a kind of hoarding, where the quantity of objects is most important. However, there is also obsessive compulsive 'discard phobia,' where nothing is ever thrown away. Such people cannot part with the ephemeral baggage of their lives, and instead they store it indefinitely. The Cups is the embodiment of this kind of mentality as reflected in my personality.

The data that I store on my computer for years on end is no longer useful. It was at one time current, and keeping it served the purpose of archival backup. Now it is outdated and functionally meaningless. However, it is not disorganization or laziness that  leads to its continuing presence on my hard-drive. It is an active program of maintenance. The data files are organized, transferred across physical machine systems and even given updated formating to keep them readable. There is a definite 'rational' that motivates this program.    For me the motive that prohibits the discarding of my digital ephemera is one of 'magical thinking.' I am convinced that it will be of some future use. More specifically, I am convinced that as soon as I discard the data a practical application – maybe even a necessary application – will appear, leaving me to contemplate my hastiness in its disposal. This is an unreasonable belief, but it informs my daily decisions about what data I keep.

The Cups is an attempt to purge this data. It puts my oldest data from my oldest file on display for all to see. It is placed in a public space to symbolically lay it bare. The 24 Hour Gallery looks out from the art world on to the larger community, confronting passersby with its presence. It is this public function that The Cups can make use of.

At the same time, the data which I have placed in the window is hidden in plain view. It cannot be easily read, and requires the use of a computer for complete translation. The only fact that is accessible in and of itself is that some kind of information is displayed. This invites the viewer to use their imagination, to construct a fiction about what might be so important as to require continual public display.

Thus, it is in the shadows and openings of the disposable cups that my secrets are both concealed and revealed. Their physical presence might amuse or please the casual viewer, but an interested and imaginative spectator will come away from the installation with a story all of their own.