The Formamat (2010)

The Formamat is an interactive installation, art piece and scientific-philosophical inquiry. It questions how much value we attach to digital data that we have stored on our cameras, phones, usb-sticks and mp3-players. With the Formamat — a vending machine that returns candies in exchange for the deletion of digital data from the user’s mobile storage device — we invite people to experience the joy of deletion and encourage them to think about the value and (in-)dispensability of their files. At the same time, we analyzing their deletion-behavior and thereby investigate the subject in a broader sense.

The Formamat was realized in the course of the Media Technology MSc programme at Leiden University. The student team consisted of Zane Kripe, Hanna Schraffenberger and Arnout Terpstra. The project has resulted in a poster presentation and a video publication:

Kripe, Z., Schraffenberger H., & Terpstra, A. (2010). Interactive Art and Persuasive Technology: The Case Study of the Formamat, Poster presented at the 5th International Conference on Persuasive Technology (Persuasive 2010), June 2010, Copenhagen.
Kripe, Z., Schraffenberger H., & Terpstra, A. (2010). The Formamat: Investigating the Dispensability of Pervasive Data, the 8th International Conference on Pervasive Computing (Pervasive 2010), May 2010, Helsinki. Video published on the USB-proceedings.

Formamat from Hanna Schraffenberger on Vimeo.