Forgotten Media: Arlo Sinclair’s Playful Homage to Dead Tech

Programmer-turned-artist Arlo Sinclair takes obsolete storage media and rewires them with wit, critique and nostalgia. Floppy disks, game cartridges, and other relics from the tech graveyard become satirical reimaginings that poke fun at pop culture, corporations, and the strange glitches of our digital age.

Born in South Africa and raised in London, Arlo’s fascination with technology began with a broken Commodore 64 that his grandfather salvaged and fixed. With no money for games, he taught himself to code at just nine years old, crafting his own pixelated adventures. That formative DIY spirit carries into his art today, where each piece is a mashup of personal history and cultural commentary.

From playfully reimagined NES and N64 cartridges to floppy disks labeled with humorous messages like Facebook’s “stolen source code,” Arlo’s paintings and sculptures look nostalgic at first glance but quickly unravel into layered critiques of consumer culture, privacy, and the way technology shapes our lives.

You can explore more of Arlo Sinclair’s creations on his website.

More art on the grid via Instagram