Recently, I’ve become fascinated in many aspects usually taken for granted in normal, everyday physical objects, particularly the ones we do not actually associate with technology. It seems we’re entering a world where objects retain more value if they can retain something, whether its tangible or not. Obviously, technology and the modern computer bring massive amounts of memory in a very small space, but what are we losing in our everyday objects?
The intent of this project is to infuse normal objects with memory, artifacts of the past, and relate that content to a viewer/listener in a space to create new and interesting interactions and meanings.
The heart of this installation centers around the ability to infuse objects in a space with virtual interfaces for interacting with their hidden data/content, and perhaps even altering it/destroying it through that interaction.
Just as we physically harm a photograph by touching it, leaving our hand’s oils and residues on the chemicals that make up the image, so to can these items be changed and altered in the installation space.
In each of these objects, there lives a reservoir of meaning. It is my notion that these storehouses of content are not fixed and pragmatic, but rather flowing and loose areas of entangled and fascinating content.
In general, this is an ongoing study in objects I hope to explore in many future projects. To begin, however, I hope to have a mixed grouping of objects in a medium-sized table. As people enter into close proximity with one of the objects, underside-projected content will surround it and previous layers of visual and aural content will float to the surface. Through the interaction with these individual images and the object itself, these pieces of “memory” will float away, mix, mash up with other memories, and distill into new content. Even if the viewer/listener tries to reassemble these items into their original locations, it will be too late. It will be as if someone is attempting to reassemble a sand-castle under three feet of water.