A New Post

Artist’s Statement

Christian Hanna

Working from Bridle’s metaphor of “the cloud”, I began thinking of other simple metaphors we use when speaking of technology, and more specifically, computers. Many things came to mind, but I eventually settled on the “folder”. The concept is so simple, and now when people speak of folders, very rarely do they mean the manila kind. Icons on a computer screen that can be used to access a directory of files came to have the name “folders” because on the surface, the concept is very similar: you “open” both to access the items “stored” inside of them. In fact, the concept was deemed so similar that the icons were styled to look like traditional folders.

In reality, once you move past the surface, there are very few similarities between the two. On its most basic level, a computer’s memory is divided into partitions, some of which are used to store information and files. Working from the bottom up, a computer has various drives, directories, and subdirectories in which the information is organized. Each folder has a unique “path”, telling the computer which subdirectories, directories, drives, and partitions to access in order to open the desired folder.

While I understand the surface metaphor of “folder”, it does not make much sense when you look deeper. In my opinion, a more accurate metaphor to demonstrate the inner workings would be, “path entry”. When you click on the icon, in enters the computer into a unique “path” to retrieve the information you desired.

Works Cited: Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/7179;jsessionid=61494FA30F6628009908C800D2210718 (accessed May 19, 2020).