COVID-19 Declared Global Pandemic: On March 11, the WHO officially declared a pandemic. On the same day, the NBA suspended its season, the US banned travel from Europe, and Tom Hanks tested positive, signaling the end of normal life.
Global Lockdowns Begin: Italy's death toll surpassed 10,000. Spain, Denmark, Hungary, and India implemented lockdowns. By March 24, nearly a quarter of the world's population was under quarantine.
US Becomes Epicenter: On March 26, the US surpassed China with the most confirmed cases, reaching over 82,000. By the end of the month, there were over 192,000 cases and 5,300 deaths in the US.
Economic Collapse: Global markets plummeted as the pandemic's economic impact became clear, triggering the worst drop since 2008.
March 2020 was the month the system was unplugged. The glitch was not a distortion of the signal, but its abrupt and total cancellation. This artifact is a reflection of that moment: a digital calendar, a tool for organizing a future that suddenly ceased to exist.
Before March 11, the calendar shows a semblance of normalcy. Events are planned, a future is assumed. After March 11—"the day everything changed"—the future is overwritten. A single, repeating event dominates: PANDEMIC DECLARED. All other plans become irrelevant, struck through, their data corrupted by the new reality.
The ghost in this machine is the absence of interaction. Unlike previous artifacts, your cursor has no effect here. You are a passive observer. This is intentional. It reflects the helplessness of the moment, the feeling of being a spectator to a global shutdown, unable to influence the outcome. The system is frozen, and so are you.