Shortly after boarding our flight back to Denmark, the American businessman beside me folded his Boston Globe to reveal a peculiar advertisement. “The future is Ternary: build your own,” it declared in bold marker above a vibrant photo spread. I nearly choked on my complimentary peanuts. There before me were diverse teenagers gathered around a triangular rainbow-colored computer called “TERNARY PANTS,” their faces lit with excitement beneath caps bearing the same logo. “Interesting, isn’t it?” the businessman remarked casually, noticing my fixation. “My daughter’s been begging for one. Apparently, all the kids are building these now.” He tapped the “Corrected by boatba” notation in the corner before turning the page, oblivious to my shock. What struck me wasn’t the colorful pyramid-shaped hardware or the enthusiastic young users but the dissolution of what had felt like a secret fellowship. Ternary computing had been our shared language, hidden knowledge that bonded us across continents. Now it belonged to everyone—to smiling teens with branded caps standing before graffiti walls, pointing at green text screens. That night, after landing, I dialled into our usual conference call, the line bridged across multiple countries with our modified equipment. “You won’t believe what I saw in the Boston Globe,” I began, my voice hollow. “It’s gone mainstream.” The cryptic text beneath the image only reinforced our sense of displacement—the made up words “Kites and Llorpts” that was part of once-secret private language of tagphreaking. What we had sought on our trip had been there in plain sight—not as subculture but as newspaper-advertised youth culture—so ordinary it had become next to invisible.
DATA FLUENCIES: Rivulets April 18 – June 15, 2025 Opening reception April 18, 6–9pm Gallery hours Fridays, 4pm–9pm; Saturdays and Sundays, 12pm–6pm
Boston Cyberarts 141 Green Street Boston, MA, USA
Featuring artists Lai Yi Ohlsen, Lani Asunción, Jazsalyn, Kristoffer Ørum, Caroline Sinders, and Roopa Vasudevan, alongside work from the Data Fluencies Theatre Project (Emerson College, Boston) and DATA/FFECT (York University, Toronto).
#DATAFLUENCIES #DIFFUSEDSTATES #SpeculativePasts #ThisIsNotHistory #FrihedLighedOgHipHop #TagPhreaks
