Hot Swap
| Hot Swap | |
|---|---|
| Name | Hot Swap |
| Location | H&D Studio |
| Date | 2026/07/18 |
| Time | 11:00-13:30 |
| PeopleOrganisations | Xiaotong Li |
| Type | HDSC2026 |
| Web | Yes |
| No | |
This event is only for participants of the Summer Camp 2026 and not open to the public, want to join us: check the HDSC2026 Clouds to Commons Public Program
Hot swap is a technique for recovering data from a damaged hard drive. It borrows the healthy body of another drive from the same production family in order to bypass the encryption process and make the data accessible again. It is also a very good example for explaining the HDD encryption mechanism, as it technically combines both physical and digital instructions to make it work.
This workshop is based on fieldwork conducted in southern China. It maps the global electronics ecosystem from the perspective of practitioners in manufacturing regions and explores an embodied way of reimagining data storage. It begins with a lecture presentation introducing the research and basic free recovery tools, enabling participants to learn basic ways to work on their own devices. In the second part, drawing on the mechanism of hot swap, participants will be invited to design their own encryption language, exploring how this mechanism transforms memory into something that can be read in ways beyond translation. Note: This workshop does not involve repairing hard drives or recovering data. Instead, it is intended as a way to understand the mechanisms of data storage and encryption through the logic of hot swap.
Workshop Sections
- Presentation: 30 minutes
- Q&A: 30 minutes
- Create your own encryption language: 60 minutes
- Collectively sharing: 30 minutes Total
time: around 2.5 - 3 hours
access note
- No prior technical experience required
Bio
Xiaotong Li is a researcher and visual artist who works across design, video and performance. Her practice follows faint sensory imprint beneath systemic grand narratives, from the perspectives of non-human entities to the silent objects within war game engines. She interested in digital forensic, speculative archaeology and physical traces such as scares, marks, ruins, dust, shadows, and she is always trying her best to embrace unseen narratives.
