I was Here

Thoughts and finds

At the beginning of the this project, my initial motivation is based on our experience that most aspects of our daily lives have been changed by network. Digital content as a new medium has been used widely as memorials to remind a person, an event or a period of old time. Since all the date probably will exist a much longer time than our life. It becomes a first time in the human history that we could be a history registrar of ourselves and talk to the future in an easy and simple way. When I was traveling from Tibet to India since I was interesting in Buddhism at that moment. During the trip, I had some chances to visit and talk with some followers of the Buddha. By chatting with them, a basic Buddhist philosophy caught my interest. They believe a philosophy that the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, return to live in a new creature body, which could be a new human body or an animal depends on your sins in present life. There are several precepts that all followers of the Buddha must observe if they hope to be reborn as a human being. Although there is no any clue to approve the reincarnation exits or not, the ethics influence their daily life. By visiting them, I was thinking the relation between the spirit, memories and data.

Actually, the first thing I found from research is that human memories are not just data system. They are much more completed. A number of research revealed when we recollect our past, such constructions are often inaccurate, they are changing all time, depend on our new memories and circumstances. So, the data we record and store with the system are better thought of as cues to trigger memory processes and help people to re-experience the past.

There are three main reasons that why people like to keep things.
1. Defining themselves and framing the family, like their photos no matter whether they are shown in public space ot hidden way in attic.
2. Connecting with the past. This reason is my main focus in the research and ideation section.
3. Forgetting, just because they are out of sight or they are not deleted.

Reincarnation

I started the initial studies in a very unfocused fashion, since memory is a massive topic and also I do not have any knowledge and contact with Norsjö municipality at the beginning of the research phase. By reading articles and academic papers, I had few interesting thoughts about memories that are relevant to digital contents mostly.

In some religions, people believe a concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, return to live in a new human body, although there is no any clue to approve this reincarnation exits or not. From another perspective, it is true that all the thing people doing right now will effects others life in the future. From one article it mentioned that when people starts to concern the future and others life, they will be more friendly to the world.

I am thinking how to bring this mindset to my project, because soul or spirit is similar to memories from some aspects when the memory could be remain for a long time even forever.

A negative mirror

A quote from Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino…  I love this book, because it captures everything that is wonderful and bittersweet about traveling. All the cities that are described in it are glamorous and thought-provoking. “a negative mirror” might be one interesting approach of my degree project.

Marco enters a city; he sees someone in a square living a life or an instant that could be his; he could now be in that man’s place, if he had stopped in time, long ago; or if, long ago, at a crossroads, instead of taking one road he had taken the opposite one, and after long wandering he had come to be in the place of that man in that square. By now, from that real or hypothetical past of his, he is excluded; he cannot stop; he must go on to another city, where another of his pasts awaits him, or something perhaps that had been a possible future of his and is now someone else’s present. Futures not achieved are only branches of the past: dead branches.

“Journeys to relive your past?” was the Khan’s question at this point, a question which could also have been formulated: “Journeys to recover your future?”

And Marco’s answer was: “Elsewhere is a negative mirror. The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have.”