“Dataworld.exe”, Children of the 1980’s Series, No. 60

Floppy disks, both 8 inch and 3 1/2 inch size, were canvases for some of my first works of “art”. I use that term loosely because when I was 8 years old, ”art” to me was … well drawing ninjas and wizards on EVERYTHING. I used these disks to store data for mostly pictures (i think one of these disks could hold 3 of them), as well as shareware games. I ended up using these disks even up to the year 1999, when I purchased my first digital camera. It was a ONE megapixel camera… it was the size of 2 bricks, and had a massive strap to put around my neck because it was so incredibly heavy.

This was before the time of SD cards… so guess what this camera used to capture pictures?

Yes folks, this camera used 3 1/2 floppy disks. .. and because I TOOK PICTURES OF EVERYTHING… .. I had ALOT of these floppy disks lying around. I still, to this day, have these around, because.. well I’m an art hoarder.

So looking fondly (and awkwardly) back at my youth in the 80′s, I came up with this piece as 3 1/2 floppy disks (aka: hard disks or diskettes) were intrinsically a part of my life and my friends lives back then. This is called “Dataworld.exe” and it is the 9th in the “Child of the 80′s series, and 68th in the collection. Inside the face of Mickey are actual windows DOS coding that revolve around basic data folders and listings. The drawings on these floppy disks are kid like and playful, and point to some of the core Disney characters and what they may have drawn on them, if they too were part of the extravagant nerd culture of the 80′s like I was.