FDIC Insured, 2008 - 2016

Starting in 2008, Michael Mandiberg methodically downloaded the logos of the many banks that failed during the Great Recession, and were taken over by the United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). During this process, these corporate visual identities were erased from the web. Except that every Saturday morning the artist downloaded the logos, preserving an otherwise lost history. Since then, 527 bank logos were saved on his computer as low resolution images, which he carefully recreated as vector files.

FDIC Insured is the output of this long lasting effort in researching and collecting information about the Great Recession that would have otherwise disappeared under the level of the visible. The project exists in three forms: a web archive of all 527 logos redrawn as hi-res vector files, located at fdic.mandiberg.com; an artist book of the same; and an installation of all of the logos burned onto the covers of cast-off investment guidebooks.

shortlist net based 2017