[collection] is a networked computer application that gathers up found material from various users' hard drives and collects them on a centralized server. Going from computer to computer, [collection] scours drives and collects bits and pieces of user's data - sentences from emails, graphics, web browser cached images, business letters, sound files-and creates a mobile mix of user experiences, operating system files, and normally hidden materials.

The program explores a workstation's architecture and a user's personal history with the machine, creating this material into a moving, three dimensional, continuously shifting map which has been compared to a visible, virtual, networked collective unconscious. It also questions notions of authenticity and authorship in the digital age, breaking the conceptual line separating, for example, and emotional letter from html or a help file.

The program is downloadable for pc for all users to access. [collection] is currently downloadable in compressed (ZIP) and in uncompressed (the .EXE) form. First download the application and log in with your the name you wish your material to be identified with. The program will do the rest! Have patience while [collection] scans your hard drive for material. The larger and fuller the hard drive, the longer the search process.

[collection] is significant because it calls into question the nature of memory as a network through its allegorical use of the internet as a collective memory space. By mapping a user's, or group of users', unique experiences-through images, downloads, web sites visited, emails-it creates spatial memory maps that not only reflect the computer and technoculture in content, but the user's artifacts from his or her interactions. Most software art projects are not about the user him or herself. [collection] becomes unique to the user or group of users participating, bringing long-forgotten content from the hard disk to light and reminding us that memory can sometimes be too persistent.

The software only visits users who have installed the prerequisite "transference" software so rights of privacy are not violated. No data is destroyed; the bits and snippets are copied into the 'unconscious' on the server.

[collection] has been exhibited onscreen as well as installation form in an exhibition space.

[collection] has been exhibited in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, Barcelona, and Sydney among other venues.