Refigured

Mother of All Demos III is part of American Artist’s exploration of Black labor and visibility, as well as anti-Blackness within networked life and digital systems. The work consists of a mold of an Apple II computer covered in thick dirt, with a black gooey liquid oozing from a keyboard framed by handprints. The materiality of the computer stands in stark opposition to the slickness of Silicon Valley aesthetics and highlights how design choices reflect ideologies rather than the inherent properties of digital interfaces. The Apple II was the company’s last computer with a black home screen; subsequent versions featured a light-colored background. 

Blackness is a defining element in this installation, alluding to how the Black workforce has historically been underrepresented in Silicon Valley despite its major contributions to modernity. The dark fluid emanating from the keys is the uppermost liquid layer of the black asphalt used for roofing. The work’s title references Douglas Engelbart’s and William English’s legendary introduction of the graphic user interface and mouse at the Computer Society’s Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco in 1968, a demonstration that retrospectively became known as “The Mother of All Demos.”