I am looking forward to reading the newly published Handbook of Media, Technology and Organizations (Eds. T. Beyes, R. Holt, and C. Pias, Oxford University Press). This is an exciting volume, with a unique design: Each author chose an object and explored its role as a mediating technology of organisation. I contributed with a chapter on the paper shredder, analyzing how this (rather obsolete) technology still mediates aspects of confidentiality, transparency and secrecy. Here, I trace the history of the paper shredder from the first prototypes of the 1900s to the most advanced industrial machines; and recount its role in organisational scandals such as Enron, Watergate and Wikileaks. I try to capture its organizing force and effects by applying Susan Leigh Star’s (1999) ‘tricks of the trade’ to study material infrastructure; and conclude with a few reflections on building a theory of information destruction.
What fascinates me about a mundane object such as the paper shredder lies in its power of destroying information. It mercilessly devours information that might have taken years to produce. Even in the shift to the digital age, it remains the most reliable technology of information destruction: physically destroying a hard disk is still the safest method to ensure that its digital information is gone for real. The paper shredder, therefore, is a dark force in the society of information, standing midway between legal practices (e.g. data protection) and illegal practices (e.g. corporate frauds). It performs a silent work, becoming visible only when corporate misconducts are exposed.
There is yet another aspect of the paper shredder, which unfortunately I could not cover in the book chapter. This is about the paper shredder and the shredded paper as a form of art. How do a mundane technology (i.e. shredding machine), and its unusable product (i.e. confetti paper) become art? I became aware of the paper shredder as a form of art when viewing Banksy’s shredded painting. This $1.4 million painting shred itself the moment it was sold at Sotheby’s auction house in London. Banksy published a video on Instagram, explaining how he had built a shredder inside the painting, ‘in case it was ever put up for auction…’:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BomXijJhArX/?hl=en
Banksy’s video on Instagram (2018)
While visiting the exhibition ‘The future starts here’ at V&A in London, I came across yet another example of shredded paper as a form of art: Ai Weiwei and Jacob Applebaum’s ‘Panda to Panda’. As explained by the curators,
“whistleblower … A number of these toys were sent to political dissidents around the world for safeguarding, creating a ‘distributed backup‘ (Victoria and Albert Museum).
Hence the Panda to Panda, with its shredded paper, is both a piece of art and an activism project. The museum participates by providing a secure place where secrets are protected as an object.
Panda to Panda (Ai Weiwei and Jacob Applebaum, 2015)
I conclude this post with a reference to the work of the conceptual artist Daniel Knorr. He created the ‘Stone Documents’, by arranging cellulose clumps made from Stasi documents into an art piece. As the Berlin Wall fell, the Stasi started the largest shredding operation of modern history (as I recount in the book chapter). They used a wet shredder, where documents were mixed with water and oil to become unrecognizable to the point of looking like stones. Knorr turned these into a piece of art, reflecting on controversial political acts and the self-destruction of a regime. In my future research, I will continue exploring how art, design and technology entwine with aspects of confidentiality, transparency and secrecy in organizations.
Alice Comi 