Mineral Amnesia explores in sound the evolution and decay of the first erasable programable silicon memory. Encapsulated under quartz windows, made of pure crystal, EPROMS, now outmoded microchips, lose information once exposed to light. The installation salvages EPROMs from different generations and plays them in real time under discrete UV light until their sounds are eroded and disappear. 

The project traverses the Digital Dark Age and its shadows through the perspective of an obsolete device. In 1971, researchers at Intel invented the Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory, adjacent to the first Microprocessor. With their influx under techno-capitalism, computational power doubled every second year and accelerated even more so today, in pursuit of artificial intelligence. This exponential growth has caused digital information to be unretrievable, lost in old hardware bodies such as these EPROMS, and dumped to form toxic wastelands across the earth’s geological layer.  

From the 8k-bit capacity in the 2708 EPROM to the 1Mbit of the 27C020, the project reanimates these chips from the past and probes events from their genesis. First generations of EPROMs found pre-programmed play rhythmic patterns out of their data. As their capacity evolves, simple waveforms become words, then phrases. Encoded histories spoken through my voice sharpen as transistor numbers increase. Light becomes an abrasive agent that consumes and distorts data slowly. Voices and programs are devoured, each on their phase until intense digital noise. Finally, as more transistors are flipped, the installation falls silent.  

The public is invited to experience the sonic textural progression in real-time erasure as these artefacts undergo collective memory loss. 

Commissioned by Simultan Association  and Galerie Nord
Curated by: Levente Kozma, Carsten Seiffarth, Veronika Witte 

​Technical support: Dorian Largen
Assistance: Alin Rotariu, Gloria Vreme Moser, Theo Vreme Moser
Woodwork: Alex Matusciac, Alin Rotariu

With support from: Administration of the National Cultural Fund (RO); Stiftung Kunstfonds, Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa (DE) 

Mineral Amnesia explores the rise and decay of erasable, programmable silicon memory through sound. Obsolete EPROMs—microchips sealed under quartz—gradually lose data. In this installation, 8K-bit to 1 Mbit EPROMs replay recorded sound under UV light until it disappears. Romanian artist Ioana Vreme Moser reflects on the digital dark age via this forgotten technology. Invented in 1971, EPROMs marked a turning point in computing history. The work questions digital permanence and highlights the fragility of memory as loops dissolve into noise and silence. The audience experiences this acoustic erosion live—as memory fades and machines forget. The jury was particularly impressed by the theme of “the erasure of memory” and its powerful artistic execution, especially the use of obsolete storage systems and a custom sound-light setup that makes the concept physically and sensually tangible. The work is highly relevant. The relevance of the work is alarming.  In times when truth is manipulated and humanistic values eroded, it reflects societal decline. Fragile achievements like democracy, peace, and remembrance are vanishing. Painful history loses meaning, while populist rhetoric drowns out facts and memory. When the memory storage of truth is ultimately deleted, the system status ”Error 404 – Democracy not found“ will appear.