Threeedit

memory recall

2007-02-22T22:21:00.000-08:00

Sequence of Vignettes for Project2

2007-02-22T10:00:00.000-08:00

2am
iHop, Green Street
Breakfast

11am
YMCA, Office
Preparing for class

3pm
Studio, Noble Hall
Preparing for a crit with Conrad

9pm
Siebel Center, Office
Researching

11pm
Siebel Center, Common room
Taking a quick break

Project 2 :: prototype sketch

2007-02-18T09:14:00.000-08:00

Setup

One person performs both rolls of subject (Matthew) and the remote caller (Jen).

The subject is able to identify that Jen is a friend because her caller id label will be annotated: Jen :: relationship: friend.

The subject uses a recording device inspired by a tablet, to record a general image -device is vwithout a viewer.

Idea?

The subject utilizes numerous systems throughout the day, varying from task to task, as mnemonic hacks enabling him/her to preserve an aggregate of the day. Our device can be a key that reveals the subjects day in an organized narrative.

video

Random thought

2007-02-17T18:59:00.000-08:00

Currently I am assembling a prototype for tomorrow's meeting. I was thinking about the video utilized by the subject as a key to deceipher mnemonic devices he/she may use throughout the day to function.

examples:

Post-It note with destination written on it so he/she can remember where the are going.

"As I write code I am always commenting lines so I can recall my thoughts."

etc.

My schedule

2007-02-16T10:49:00.000-08:00

s: 12:00 - 5:00p library
m: 12:00 - 1:00p teach
2:00 crit
t: 9:00a ta meeting
2:00p crit
w: 12:00 - 1:00p teach
3:00 - 6:00p library
t: 11:00 - 3:00p teach
f: 9:00 - 11:00a project meeting
s: 9:00 - 2:00 library

the device

2007-02-12T15:14:00.000-08:00

As a contained unit, the recording and storage device would function well as a before mentioned tablet pc upgraded with various recognition and recording inputs attached. Its hard drive would serve as the storage medium as it actively perceives relevant video, ambient audio as well as full dialogues throughout the day, and potentially gps routes taken primarily for narration.

Here is a sketch.

Maybe a bluetooth wireless connection could handle calls in a simple GUI. Call waiting and instant messages and automated surveys would come up from time to time with photograph associations.

Its ideal arrangement as an integrated unit would make it more inconspicuous and therefore more socially unnoticeable. This prototype could hopefully be held in one's arm or carry it in a laptop bag [also before mentioned].

Computer scripts would compose a log or screenplay of the day to decipher collected video. As one interacts with the unit it would record video appropriately [or passively]. Dialogues would be dictated in text form as well as retained in audio as interpersonal interactions often create memories.

[example output with italics representing automated input and bold representing user input]

"At ten thirty today I left the house for a meeting. I drove to [x,y].

architect: how are things?
self: fine

I stayed for 18 minutes and then returned home."

Thoughts about Sources

2007-02-12T14:16:00.001-08:00

Possible prototype for data collection

Subject receives call from an anonymous person.
- Why is the remote person participating?
- What can promote trust between caller and subject?

Subject receives a call from a familiar person.
- Caller id will signal a relationship.

Phones require the manipulation of multiple devices.
- A self-contained unit may be less of a hassle to use.

Subject has an alarm that goes off on a regular cycle.
- Possibly excludes extraordinary events of the day.
- Reveals routines (i.e. Rick's poster).

Process
- Video camera with live/local narration.
- Immersive environment?
- canvas as a rough prototype?
- fabricate space through video prototype.

script of external memory................

2007-02-11T22:44:00.000-08:00

friends i was thinnking of the script of how to go about , for the project 2-
if we are fine with the choosing the subject that is me, i have thought of the script-

1. who is the caller and why does they call?
a situation in which the suject is cut of from the homeland and people back home , has not been in communication for some reasons. callers are family members, friends and concerned people who are worried and egar to know in what state subject is right now.

2.why is subject narrating all his emotions and how is he relating this sentiments to the caller?
subject is in unprecedented situation where everything around him is vastly different from the life he was in. he tries to narrate his memory by recalling and comparing it with the situations he was in, to convey it to callers.
eg. how is life here in u.s? how does it feel in snow? how are the cities ? what are the experience in the school?
these questions can be recorded and narrated in such a way that ,it gives a know how of subjects daily itinerary.
even comparitive script of these answers can be presented, such as climatic difference(shows emotions of first snow expirence, in contrast to hot anddry climate of subjects homeland)

3.what are the emotions which are intented to naratted?
emotions of loneliness, surprise, pressure, anxiety, frustrations, love.

4. is it more of recording or recalling these emotional memories?(this one is tricky, need your inputs)
recalling- subject tries to recall his memories associated with the experiences he had in the situation he is in.
eg. shot of subject walking in freezing cold- subjects recalls his first walk to school in cold weather, emotions attached sense of surprise( to see snow first time in his life) experience of the harsh climate.
how is wheather?
ans: (mom) today it snowed, i was walking in the snow, it was really cold- it seemed that everything is cladded in white carpet, soft snow under the feets -people playing with snow balls, making ice man etc snows emotions of subjects while narrating the situation.

5.what device is used, what purpose does it solve and how does it work?
memory frames - it gives the user of an account of a place, sense, emotion of any person goin through- these relates to the memories which are generated by the subject, even caller is part of the whole process as it linked to the external refrence .
it creates a simulated environment in which any person subject or caller can experienced the memory scape of the person,
subject stores the memories and callers(any other person) can expirenced this simulated environment along with the subject.

friends this is what i was thinking and came up with, hope we can move further and refine these ideas and give more concrete shape. it can be a starting point of our discussions, hope to see more feed back on it.

continuity

2007-02-08T14:27:00.000-08:00

As one's memory records an event, place, smell, etc. he or she is detached from precicley deciding what aspects will be recorded and which will be forgotten. Sentiments towards a memory can influence it in a variety of ways--from minor abstraction ['the fish i caught was this big'] to shutting out painful memories to feelings of regret and anger possibly through love. This discontinuity of memory is truly human. There exists the phenomenon of the suspect lineup used by law enforcement, where multiple witnesses will remember a scene differently and come up with varying identifications.

A device that records memory statically [audio and video] falls short of emulating the brain and its complexities for there is neither censor nor opinion associated with the raw data, thus leaving it in its original factual state. As the tape runs continuously with no emotional associations it becomes impossible to categorize and differentiate individual memories. The data piles up with even priorities.

A system that edits data in real time influenced by emotional user input would approach the complex intricicies of the brain. In the end product spaces may become larger than they actually were and conversations may be recorded in parts or snippets depending on the user's feelings at the time. Such an emulation would produce a log fittingly abstract for simulated memory.

memory scape

2007-02-07T21:35:00.000-08:00

Memory scape……………………………….

Imagine ……….this word itself, directs our mind to think or assume things which are tangible or superficial. Just “imagine” that some one asks you to concise your whole life and reflect it into any medium. There is so much in your life which you have experienced ,so many people you met and places you have been, all of this in one device, canvas or installation. Every memory you are associated with has a place attached to it, this spaces behaves as a background for a subject in any image. If we try to create a whole city which host all your memorable events ?

How will it happen?

Lets try to record all your memories in an audio visual device – of people, places and your sensory experiences. These memories can be in your desired sequence, but then we will break it into parts and immerse you into an environment where all these events are played for you together.
What will happen ? there will be too much of data which will flow and it would be difficult for you to absorb all of it, but if is played in continues loop. You will then hear and see what you want, with all other images as some source which are flowing with it. In real life at every moment there are too many events which takes place simultaneously around you while you are engaged with some other things. This will give a similar sense, but it would be your own people and spaces which will be around you while you are relating your self to one of the distinct memory which is subset of the entire data.

This will create you own linear city.

Project 2: Memory Frame

2007-02-07T16:49:00.000-08:00

Sketches from a previous system prototype that conjoined two spaces.

Memory is not a self-contained autonomous narrative that a person is unable to recall infinitely without degradation of fidelity (authenticity). Memory depends on context to be functional, completing evidence + context = memory. Memories are dynamic and ephemeral, changing with time and experience, eventually transforming into a new memory or a more well informed memory. Memories are a negotiation between factual evidence and first-person experience. Memories share many properties of oral tradition; with each instance they are recalled and re-told, the memory narrative is augmented by the current social, political, emotional, temporal circumstances situating the storyteller, the person recalling a memory.

A person (the subject) who has lost the ability to remember, will [most likely] be unable to associate context of an experience with visual or tangible evidence of from the same temporal experience, negating their ability to construct a memory.

Memory Frame 1 is a portable frame, similar to a small window or picture frame the size of a laptop that a user will carry around with them enabling the user an ability to record segments of their day. A user will be reminded of this task by a regular alarm that will cue them to record the moment. The alarm will ask questions that will [hopefully] stimulate a simultaneous naration of the events being recorded. Prototype questions include: "What are you doing?", "Where are you?", "Who are you with?". We hope these questions will generate enough context for the user to mark up or tag the video with an additional layer of site/experience-specific information contexualizing the video (image/sound) being recorded for use later in re-play Pod (see next section). A person's own testimony is usally more difficult to argue against or deny than an external party.

Lucid Media Pod re-play Environment:

The user will have two options for play-back:

[linear/non-linear] Immediate access to recorded content through the Memory Frame.

A media rich environment inspired by LOT-EK's Mixer (/LO-TEK installations/Art installation/Mixer) where a user engages with their posts as memory through an overwhelming sensorial rich media experience. Encapsulated in a media pod, the user is saturated in a media experience with the goal of removing them from the linear conscious timeline of the real world and submit them into their unconscious.

The Memory Frame object functions as a large [pardon me] "memory card". The user inserts the Memory Frame into the Pod enabling the Pod for play-back mode. Once a user enters the Pod, he/she is without the Memory Frame, without the need to activly collect memories, just to reall and indulge in them.

Due to the user's inability to recall a memory, the user is unable to distinguish between a dream and reality.

Related Work:

LOT-EK

project one: BodyBlogs

2007-01-31T21:49:00.000-08:00

BodyBlog is a mobile site-specific and user-specific wearable blog system. BodyBlog users (host or external) are enabled to read audio data from a BodyBlog or write audio data to any BodyBlog garment.

BodyBlog

BodyBlog apparel is embedded with strips of magnetic tape forming a repository for blog posts. BodyBlog gloves are equipped with cassette recorder play and record heads, enabling users the ability to read and write BodyBlog postings.

BodyBlog access is contingent on multiple layers of individual comfort levels with tactile interaction; the blog host defines where a person can or can not make contact, this regulation of public/private space governs access a reader/writer is granted to available content. Prior to any read/write action, a reader/writer must recognize their own level of comfort when making physical contact with another person. Next the user can add or subtract the access permitted by the host.

Physical Prototype

Double-stick masking tape was applied along the length of the shirts. For the purpose of a paper prototype we restricted the magnetic tape "design" to vertical lines. Aligning the tape with the user's vertical axis (esp on the chest) allowed us to address potential public/private space relationships between a host and external user.

Cassette tape was applied on the double-stick tape.

BodyBlog gloves contain the read and write hardware. One glove has a read head appended to pointer finger. Headphones are attached to the read-glove allowing a user to hear blog posts. The write-glove has a record head at the tip of the pointer finger. A lapel microphone is wired into the write-glove allowing users to make audio posts.

A user reading the content of a post.

Posts are not subject to the length of a tape strip (10 seconds/female shirt, 12-15 seconds/male shirt). A user can distribute a post throughout the writable landscape, creating an aesthetic similar to an audio mash-up mix.

Paper Prototype:

Related Work:

Teleblogs Brian Davis
Gossip Eric Gilbert, Matthew Yapchaian
Prepared W.C. Nam June Paik