The part's of the work you don't see can be just as important as the parts you can see. You can look at the physical device, and if found art is still art then so can a HDD. But, in the larger context this is similar to creating a sculpture and then displaying it covered in a tarp. You could take at the information inside, but that's irrelevant to what you see and feel when you look at the HDD / Tarp.
PS: I think most people would get a much stronger reaction from looking at the tarp than they would looking at most pieces of modern art.
> But, in the larger context this is similar to creating a sculpture and then displaying it covered in a tarp.
The Hope Diamond doesn't need to be covered by a tarp for 99.999% of the population to fail to distinguish it from a solid fake. I think the "is that diamond real?" question is a decent equivalen to the "is that hard drive empty?" one. Using special tools, both can be verified.
Edit: I realize that the hope diamond probably is not art, so my main point has to be about the intrinsic value of the object.
Methinks the Hope Diamond IS art: taking a grungy rock, skill was applied at great cost & risk to turn it into an object for the sole purpose of looking at it. That its value and demand is great speaks for what a great piece of art it is.
Whether the mind perceiving an object is trained to comprehend what is perceived is a different issue from whether the nature of the object can be perceived at all. This is why much of "modern art" is accompanied by several pages of explanation: given the education required, the audience has at least a hope of comprehending what is striking the senses. 4'33" makes some kind of sense given preliminary background/training; "Thidreks" is great literature if one but learns Old Norwegian; a viewer may be persuaded Pollock's paintings are great art ... in all cases, the material is there for perception, and is what it is regardless of training. Most viewers may be unable to discern the Hope Diamond from like-shaped glass, but that's not the cutter's problem - the outstanding beauty is there for the viewing, stifled only by the viewer's mind. You're hard-pressed to fake the Hope Diamond, and a solid fake WOULD share the artistry outside of the intrinsic value.
In this case, there is NOTHING in the exhibit for the audience to perceive. No application of senses can reveal what's there. Plugging it into a computer for conversion to perceptible form may reveal its intrinsic value, but as there is nothing to perceive otherwise then there is no art any more than sticking the Mona Lisa into a welded-shut steel box, covering a sculpture with a tarp, or displaying the Hope Diamond before it was cut to shape.
PS: I think most people would get a much stronger reaction from looking at the tarp than they would looking at most pieces of modern art.