‘Cleared Cache’, Compressed laser print, 9cm x 22cm x 5cm, Courtesy XPO Gallery
As we all know after the Snowden leaks, our Google and Facebook data finds its way into the hands of advertisers, but is also stored and analyzed by the NSA. It goes on living—endlessly perhaps. So does Roth’s internet cache work, which I think should not be bought, but find its way into the trash, where it will have several other lives, before being either recycled or exposed to the disintegrating power of the elements.The recycling of Roth’s internet cache is interesting in and of itself. In this scenario, it could be taken, processed, and fashioned into other paper products. In other words, resurrected; something that’s foreign to digital data, which can never really become anything but what it was when created, unless it’s corrupted somehow with a virus.It doesn’t seem that Roth was commenting on data being mined, sold, and analyzed by various private and state interests. After all, he was creating this art between May and June of 2013. But, after the Snowden leaks, you can’t help but read an anti-NSA commentary into the work, which is the beauty of art.