“Memories and Rememories” presented by Yoon and Kwon

Symposium:

• ISEA2016: 22nd International Symposium on Electronic Art
• More presentations from ISEA2016:  

• Memories

• Memories and Rememories

• Joonsung Yoon
• Kyoungah Kwon

Venue(s):

• Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong SAR China

• This paper explores the hybrid memory that emerges by combining the memory of human or things and the electronic memory of the digital processing. The memory of things are generally recorded on their bodies. If they are broken or transformed, they lose a part of their memories. And the human memory is gradually changes into the pieces of fragmented memory, and eventually lost the large part of information. Two works are introduced in the paper, and show the rememory, processing the memories of human/things through the digital media, such as computer programs, sensors, and 3D printer.

  Rememory is “the rememberance, that defines the continuation of a memory. Also, rememory is used reformed as blend of remember and memory.“ In this process, Electronic memory is essentially involved in the most of the process of rememory. Therefore, the memory of human becomes the actual presence that acquires properties of a substance with the electronic memory in the process of digital rememory. In contrast, the memory of things acquire the virtuality and lose the materiality. Both of these memories are reproduced in the form of abstraction, its complexity and disordered information through the combination of the electronic memory. It becomes the hybrid memory.

  Rediscover of Memories
  Love Project is to bring up the latent feelings of love in past memories for the present, and it prints three-dimensional shapes using 3D printer. Participants are equipped with various sensors on their bodies, and they send the information that measures the speed of their heartbeats and fluctuations from their voices and brain activities onto the computer. The collected information becomes an output for the physical object by 3D printer.

  Guto Requena tries to capture the emotions that people feel in their personal love stories, and transforms them into everyday objects. He said, “it will bear personal histories in ways that encourage long life cycles, thus inherently combining deeply meaningful works with sustainable design.”

  [1] The objects of love story are different by each participant, and they are printed in various forms. When participants tell their love story, which are reminiscent of the past memory, their bodies release biological variations. These variations are gathered through the sensors, and then, are transmitted to the computer program to convert the data. These individual data are created as separate objects by 3D printer via the pre-configured program. In other words, the invisible emotions of love obtain a substance through the process of digital fabrication. In these processes, the past memory of participants is not only reproduced by the digital process, but also is combined with the stored electronic memory in the computer system and 3D printer. Therefore, the object made as the result of the Love Project, is the hybrid creature to be born between the memory of human being and electronic memory.

  The past memory that is preserved in a latent state appears in the presence by the recalling. And the sensory information from the body goes through the electronic memory, and is created as the three dimensional object. Memory of the past gradually removes the subsidiary information, and ultimately leaves the imprinted information. The rediscovery of the memories leads us to the past. Rediscovery of memory is not only a process to recall the historical memory, but also a process to frame the fragmented pieces of floating memory. But the recalled memory only preserves its most essential nature, and creates the new memory to represent via electronic memory. Love story that is born by 3D printer is the nature of memory embodying time in this digital age.

  Loss and Restoration
  ‘Three vases’ combined two creative processes of digital printing and traditional craft. This involved a challenging process that uniquely combines two forms of the original and the history, using traditional and digital tools. Broken pieces of the vase leave their traces in the 3D printed black net, and they still follow their original form. [2] In the restoring process of vase, digital printing replaces the glue that sticks the broken pieces in the traditional restoration. However, in the restored vase, the broken pieces disappear, only remain in the site of the glue. In the restored vase, the black line replaces the position of traditional glue that does not function as a glue.

  Nevertheless, it provides information on the shape of the broken pieces, and through this, we know that the original pieces have been there. If the vase is broken, craftsmen typically aim to restore its original shape. But Three vases restored the form of glue, instead of restoring the original shape. According to Eco, “memory is physically an imprinted or printed record, and helps us reestablish causal links, reconstruct fact.” [3] In the restored vase, 3D printed black net becomes the restoration of memory with the memory of vase.

  In the hybrid craft to combine with traditional and digital process, the original pieces disappear. But paradoxically, the boundaries of the piece provide information about the lost pieces. Therefore, we can recall the original pieces existed in there, through the 3D printed black net. And we can understand that it was recognized by inherited and acquired memory.

  Electronic memory and Rememories
  The memory is deeply buried in consciousness over time, and the form of memory is gradually changed into fragmented pieces losing some information. This memories are often unconsciously recalled through the people, things, and the place related to one’s memory.

  There are also reminded from the similar experience of other people. But the recalled memories become to arrive at the spacetime that differs from the moment to be generated a event. The spacetime consists of each other information systems every moment, due to the change of the time and space. [4] Therefore, the recalled memories are reconstructed other information with original memory by changing the spacetime. According to Oxford online Dictionaries, “rememory is the remembrance, that defines the continuation of a memory. Also, rememory is used reformed as blend of remember and memory.” [5] Three Vases try to document the past event, just as the evidence, without restoring the original material form of the broken pieces. And Love Project try to materialize the past memory of human through the remembrance. Therefore, both are shown to explore the rememory of humans and things.

  Now we need to consider that was involved the electronic memory in the rememory process of the humans and things. The example of Love Project and Three Vases are essentially involved in the electronic memory. In Three vases, the electronic process converts the information of the shape and location of broken pieces to digital data. And it designs the completed form of the broken pieces can be connected to each other. Also, the electronic process outputs the material object by 3D printer. In this processes, the electronic process is using the given information itself, and builds the final form of the object. Love Project uses the electronic memory in order to materialize the non-substance memory of human. Hereby, the electronic memory is essentially involved in the whole process, except the initial input data.

  Conclusion
  In the digital media, the electronic memory plays a role as the medium for rememory of the non-substance and substance memory. And the both all is evolved as the hybrid by the electronic memory. This memory reproduces, in the form of abstraction, its complexity and disorder information through the electronic memory. Therefore, the memory of past acquires the properties of substance by combining with the electronic memory in the process of rememory, and becomes an actual presence again.

Category:

• Artist Talk