Memoryscapes // Interactive Installation
Memoryscapes // Interactive Installation
Memoryscapes // Interactive Installation
BACKGROUND

This installation is a response to my research into collective memory and it's relationship to societal fragmentation caused by digital cultures, where constant connectivity and self-promotion have blurred the lines between producer and consumer, simultanously contributing to cultural isolation. In this atomised society, memory is increasingly mediated and disjointed, shaped by algorithmic feeds and fleeting interactions. The project explores how sound and body can serve as grounding triggers for memory in an age of technological forgetting.

This installation is a response to my research into collective memory and it’s relationship to societal fragmentation caused by digital cultures, where constant connectivity and self-promotion have blurred the lines between producer and consumer, simultanously contributing to cultural isolation. In this atomised society, memory is increasingly mediated and disjointed, shaped by algorithmic feeds and fleeting interactions. The project explores how sound and body can serve as grounding triggers for memory in an age of technological forgetting.

YEAR

2017

ROLE

Interaction Design, Art Installation

COLLABORATORS

Solo

Process highlights

Research

  • Literary and media review: Investigated digital cultures, media theory, and the role of memory in the networked age.

  • Conceptual Framing: Examined how technological mediation alters memory construction, preservation, and emotional recall.

  • Participant Sound Research Experiment: Participants were given paper and paint, and listened to 6 different sonic prompts, and were asked to draw what comes to mind.

  • Interviews: As a follow up to the experiment, participants took part in semi-structured interviews where their reactions and experience of the experiment were discussed.

  • Insight: Sounds relating to nature, and especially the beach triggered the most intimate memories, highlighting a link between sensory stimuli and affective recall.

Design

  • Concept Development: the installation concept may be seen as an extension, whereby sound and movement act as a universal memory trigger. A place of memory that exists in all of us. A minimalist structure that encouraged certain body postures were combined with specific sounds heard at the beach, connecting to distinct element of nature: the sand, the water, the air. A walk on the beach, followed by a dive, then a breath of fresh air.

  • Installation development: The installation was built using wooden rods that created the frame of the interaction and sensors; a progression of 3 frames connected together with 3 different sensors, triggered by proximity, playing corresponding sounds.

Research communication artefacts