Range: Of Swiss Fort Knox #23

Assembly presents Range: Of Swiss Fort Knox by Penelope Umbrico. Building on her Range series, this collection was made specifically for the blockchain and focuses on Swiss Fort Knox, an underground data center in the Swiss Alps that provides "long-term access to our digital cultural and scientific assets." After sourcing internet images tagged “Swiss Fort Knox,” she photographs the images on the screen with her iPhone, processing them through the camera app filters that simulate “mistakes” of analogue photography. Hallucinogenic colors blend with disorienting effects of the device’s gravity sensor to dislodge any perception of stability in the mountain, the data center, and the photographic medium. The data center (a contemporary cultural repository) melds with the supposed stability of the mountain range (one of the oldest sites of spiritual contemplation) and is destabilized through the generative changes of each iteration, yet now remains fixed in time through the blockchain.