Deletion Process, 2013, 2015, 2019

Have you ever wished you could hide traces of your digital self that are left online? In 2013 Kyriaki Goni started downloading her Google Search history between 2008 and 2013. Deletion Process_Only you can see my history exposes the artist's search history of that period and invites the audience to browse through 10,650 unfiltered terms and images that the artist searched for over a period of five years and eventually to take part to a ritual of deletion.

Once a searched term is deleted on screen, the white square containing it eventually turns black, and the term gets printed out on roll paper along with the date of search and deletion.

Your personal search history on Google doesn’t necessarily belong to you. Rather, it is part of a larger data profile that is used by advertisers to target you. Deletion Process offers a window into that archive of one person’s intimate data – and to see how it feels to erase it.

Exhibition text The Glass Room San Francisco in October 2019 curated by Tactical Tech and Mozilla Foundation.