999 GB
Video, 2025
About the artwork
This is not a figure. It’s a trace.
999 GB — almost full. Almost failure. Almost forever. A digital silhouette that assembles itself from cursors, then vanishes — dissolving into the air above the city.
It doesn’t weigh down the city — it echoes it.
Like a ghost made of clicks, of choices, of rushes to keep up. A form shaped by accumulated action — everything we’ve ever done with a mouse and keyboard, as if life itself depended on it.
This work speaks to the scale of the invisible.
To how much we leave behind — inside systems that no longer run.
To a time when a file could weigh more than a body.
And when 999 gigabytes wasn’t just memory — it was the limit.
Sound design
Audio explanation
Listen to don't Buy discuss this work.
Don’t Buy is a visual artist who creates digital paintings, videos, and GIFs using artificial intelligence and mixed media. Embracing a moniker that itself subverts consumerist language, he approaches art-making with a hacker’s spirit – repurposing AI technology to explore the beauty of errors and the aesthetics of early digital culture. In his work, glitchy abstractions and retro graphics converge to address themes of identity and imperfection in the online era. “When a cold, mechanical machine makes a mistake, it becomes a little more human,” Don’t Buy notes, reflecting his view that technological faults can reveal human qualities. This philosophy underscores much of his art, which often highlights the serendipity of algorithmic mistakes and the nostalgia of outdated interfaces.
A participant in Fellowship’s AI art program, Don’t Buy has presented projects that encapsulate his ethos. Notably, his series 404: SELF NOT FOUND (2024) is an assemblage of AI-generated imagery probing our entanglement with digital identities and the nature of error. Through a mix of dark humor and experimental technique, he transforms mundane clicks and computer glitches into artistic meditation.