Writing large messages with sticky post notes is part of the visual lengua oficina* for many whose career ladder has been in corporate offices for years, decades.

Stockholm based street artist Vlady shares with us a public application under a bridge that also triggers your memories of early pixelated video games with its digitally inspired message “temporary files”. 

The meaning of the term “temporary files” is not familiar to the casual user of consumer-class computers. More likely your local IT professional can tell you dryly. As you think about it, you may see how it takes on a rather existential realm to the poet, as a temporary file is created to temporarily store information in order to free memory for other purposes. Mention “memory” and we realize that the vocabulary for man and machine are braiding together more daily before our eyes.

Here we are at the dawn of Artificial Intelligence and our memories are at full capacity, needing temporary files to store them.

*a fictional term that seems appropriate