blue screen of future death (Chernobyl virus edit)
2024
text, computer code
dimensions variable, 21 kB
Chernobyl is a Microsoft Windows 9x computer virus that first emerged in 1998. Its payload is highly destructive to vulnerable systems, overwriting critical information on infected system drives and, in some cases, destroying the system BIOS. It was believed to have infected sixty million computers internationally, resulting in an estimated US$35 million in commercial damages. The virus made a comeback in 2001 when a variant of the LoveLetter Worm was circulated around the internet under the guise of a nude picture of Jennifer Lopez. The payload, which is considered extremely dangerous, first involves the virus overwriting the first megabyte of the hard drive with zeroes, beginning at sector 0. This deletes the contents of the partition table, and may cause the machine to hang or cue the blue screen of death.
Here, the code for the Chernobyl virus is rewritten in the future tense, replacing the usual imperative form of computer language. It announces something about to happen, a story that is predicted and probable, a bait and switch narrative and/or love story. Although still narrated as the future, as an impending doom to come within an indefinite and/or undetermined time, the blue screen of death appears, the announced future is already here.
The blue monochrome screen as an artwork, an impossible computer script or the movie representation of a hacking… Start the story as close to the end as possible, was Don Delillo’s advice to aspiring writers. As all things move along towards their end and communications break down, there are blue skies up ahead and the announced future is already here.
