Expectant of a movie or a home video, Elias hit play. Instead, he was met with a high-definition sensory loop. It was a "Shower of Color"—a technical stress test designed to "massage" stuck pixels back to life. On the screen, vibrant flashes of neon green, electric blue, and deep crimson rained down in a digital "shower," cycling rapidly to force the liquid crystals to move.

in the center of the screen—a tiny black void that refused to admit any light.

In the humid summer of 2011, a digital archivist named Elias found a hard drive labeled "