Accumulated Memory Landscapes

Brain computer interface and custom software.

2016-08-01

Accumulated-Memory-Landscapes is inspired by Jim Campbell's “Accumulated Psycho”, a piece which collects and interprets by averaging the monolith of cultural memory stored in Hitchcock's film “Psycho” as specific, precise data, transforming it, staging it in present experience; a transformation which devours memory, erasing its perceptual vividness by literally overwriting it with fuzzy averages - condensations of computational memory. Accumulated-Memory-Landscapes, as a conceptual process, explores how technology can mediate and enhance human memory as a process; expanding the possibilities of interaction, experiencing and sharing of these packages of information. This project, rethinks the 3 main steps involved in human memory (Encoding → Storage → Retrieval) by finding parallels between the biological human process and the technological devices and algorithms used for capturing, storing and recalling data. Using a custom-made electroencephalogram (EEG) with an embedded camera and internet access we have built a wearable device able to measure attention levels (proven to be responsible in many ways for memory capturing and retrieval) and alpha-waves patterns (used to measure visual cortex activity) of a user, in any given moment. The device records significant moments of the wearer, in the form of image sequences, which are sent in real-time to a server that algorithmically processes these. The result is an immersive 3D procedural landscape built from these memories; a space where the wearer and any other individual can experience and share (as in the model of a social network) these accumulated memories in more spacial ways.