Permanent collection · Free admission · Open source
Selected Works, 2019 – today
Selected works of Fermin Lassa, a DevOps engineer in Spain. Pipelines, infrastructure, side projects, and a room that does not exist.
Curated by the artist, who also wrote the labels, which is a conflict of interest the museum has chosen to ignore.
Floor plan · Ground floor
You are here. There is no lift. Emergency exits are marked with a 503. Room 3 does not exist.Room 3 is open now. You did that.
Works made on commission, mostly at Veridas, where the artist has been a DevOps engineer since March 2022. Most of them are invisible when they work, which makes them unusually hard to exhibit.
Cat. 01Audio guide 101
GitLab CI/CD, Docker, security scanners, diplomacy
Security checks moved to the very start of the release process, where problems are cheap: lint, validate and scan on every merge request. Note how each bar has moved left. The artist would like you to notice this.
Conservation note. Occasionally blocks a Friday deploy. This is considered a feature.
Commissioned by Veridas.
Cat. 02Audio guide 102
Terraform, AWS, a little GCP, pull requests
Infrastructure that only changes through pull requests. Each one explains why, what and the impact, then runs through lint, validate and deploy. Reusable modules keep the pieces identical, and Terratest checks they still stand up afterwards.
Conservation note. Manual changes in the cloud console are treated as vandalism.
Commissioned by Veridas.
Cat. 03Audio guide 103
Vault, AWS Secrets Manager
A portrait of every credential in the codebase. There are none: they live in Vault and AWS Secrets Manager, where they belong.
Conservation note. Visitors often ask whether the canvas is unfinished. It is finished.
Commissioned by Veridas.
Cat. 04Audio guide 104
Rust, WebAssembly, an older codebase
Core components rebuilt piece by piece in a memory-safe language. Viewers often say nothing has changed. That is correct. It is faster and safer.
Conservation note. The artist will discuss this work at length if approached. Approach with caution.
Commissioned by Veridas.
Cat. 05Audio guide 105
Custom exploits, MITRE ATT&CK, long reports
A series of attacks performed with permission, to show a public administration where its defences were thin, followed by reports explaining what to fix first.
Conservation note. Details redacted at the owner’s request. The redactions are the artwork now.
Gobierno de Navarra, December 2020 – June 2021.
Works made after hours, for no client, for no reason other than wanting to see whether they would work.
Cat. 06Audio guide 201
Java
A space shooter. What hangs here is a portrait of the game; the original is playable online, and visitors are encouraged to try it.
Conservation note. Highest score, held by the artist: 2,147,483,647. Unverified. Suspiciously, also the largest number a 32-bit integer can hold.
Cat. 07Audio guide 202
Java, a lot of colours
A colourful messaging app. It never beat WhatsApp, but it never stopped trying.
Conservation note. Has restarted 9,001 times. Conservators have stopped counting.
On loan from GitHub. · Source
Cat. 08Audio guide 203
JavaScript, PHP, SQL, friends
An app for local artists to manage and promote their events, and the artist’s first company.
Conservation note. Taught the artist about backups, and that servers keep running (and billing) until somebody shuts them down. The artist remembered when the bill came.
Gift of the founders. · Source
Cat. 09Audio guide 204
Python, SQL, one Spotify account
Spotify Wrapped, available every day of the year instead of once.
Conservation note. Reveals the artist’s listening habits. Viewer discretion advised.
On loan from GitHub. · Source
Cat. 10Audio guide 205
Python, SQL, curiosity
A small sniffer, written to find out what the network was actually saying. Mostly, it turns out, it was saying “ACK”.
Conservation note. Only used on networks the artist owns. The museum’s lawyers asked us to add this.
On loan from GitHub. · Source
Corridor
There is no Room 3.
The door is open.
The museum has never had a Room 3. The floor plan skips it for structural reasons. Visitors are kindly asked not to try the door.
Room 3 is just below. Mind the cables, the penguin, and the artist.
You found the room behind the wall. This is where the artist actually works, and where the collection is built and shipped: a commit, a pipeline, a cluster. The artist has not noticed you yet. In here, and only in here, touching production is encouraged.
Exhibit 3.0 · LiveAudio guide 301
One engineer, one penguin, four coffees, opinions
The studio, reconstructed exactly as the artist left it. The artist did not leave. Ping, the penguin, supervises.
Conservation note. Please do not tap on the glass. The artist startles, and then deploys.
Exhibit 3.1 · Hands-on
Press the button. Your commit travels the line and is installed in the collection below, with your name on it.
Logbook
Exhibit 3.2 · Select a piece
This vitrine is empty. Press the button above to donate a piece.
This vitrine is empty. Press the button above to donate a piece.
This vitrine is empty. Press the button above to donate a piece.
This vitrine is empty. Press the button above to donate a piece.
The artist’s writing. The museum apologises for the scaffolding.
“He always blames me. It was me, but still.”
“Five stars. Would get paged again.”
“I’ve been planned, applied and destroyed in here. Lovely staff.”