The Birth of Memory from the Spirit of the Machine
Symposium:
- ISEA2011: 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art
- More presentations from ISEA2011:
Session Title:
- Transmedia Narrative: Modes of Digital Scholarship and Design Across Public Space
Presentation Title:
- The Birth of Memory from the Spirit of the Machine
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
Panel: Transmedia Narrative: Modes of Digital Scholarship and Design Across Public Space
The computer is a machine of the future – not only do we still attach to it the connotation of technological sophistication and future orientation, also in its function as an information processing machine it only deals with the present, calculating towards to future. Being solely aware of its current state and the transition rules of how to move towards the next state the computer is an inherently amnesic machine. The memory complement to this information processor is the database, adding the option to store data and keep them shielded from the ongoing memory erasure. But as it is part of the regime of the present the database offers its records as co-present, eliminating the notion of the past as a time vector spanning different chronological instances from past, to future. The paper explores how the project “Bleeding Through – Layers of Los Angeles 1920-1986” uses the presence-structure of the machine to construct an allegory of the process of remembering and the erasure of memory in the interplay of personal recollection and collective memory. Inspired by Norman Klein’s “History of Forgetting” we devised a process within which elements from the past endlessly fold upon themselves in a virtual navigation through Downtown Los Angeles. Using signifying chains following the concept of Markov chains we are devising a mechanism that touches on the subconscious processes of meaning creation described by Jacques Lacan.