Collective Core Memory Bank - Interactive Exhibit (2024)

A two-part interactive exhibit installation that was a part of a public art showcase at the Anderson Academic Commons at the University of Denver in March 2024.

Part 1 - Emotional Taxonomy | Interactive Bureau
Garden Exhibit - 'Heart'

This exhibit is an interactive fictional narrative centered around the creation of “Core Memories”, significant instances for each individual in existence that derives from our raw Emotions and meaningful Moments we all experience throughout our lives. The intention is for the audience to learn about and engage with ‘Emotional Taxonomy’, a unique process that procedures how individuals can initiate the categorization, or ‘conceptual filtering’, of Emotions felt in their hearts during Moments that occur in their lives.

Individuals can visit an Emotional Taxonomy Bureau to anonymously fill out and submit Emotive Cards, small forms that can be used to express their specific Emotions and Moments. These Emotive Cards are collected, chronicled, and translated into workable data to be used in a special database able to be accessed within the library. This unique database transforms this data into Core Memories, which are archived and managed in perpetuity.

The deliverables of this exhibit involve three major components: the presentation of working electronics and technology spanning three decades from the 1980s to the 2010s, curated books published and printed over the last two centuries, and the implementation of digital design and editing to create custom document materials. These components combine to create an interactive, immersive space meant to resemble a surreal, timeless, abstract, yet familiar, ‘office’ or ‘academic’ work or study space.

The audience interacts with the exhibit through engaging with the materials and artifacts on the desk, each item’s context and adjacent thematic qualities adding to and informing on the overall fictional narrative. There is also a performative component that can be included with the exhibit by the artist or an associate, wherein the individual roleplays as the on-staff ‘Bureau Employee’ and guides participants of the exhibit through the Emotive Card populating and filing process.

Part 2 - Remembrance Archive | Memory Cloud
Loft Exhibit - 'Brain'

This exhibit is a digital visualization that incorporates real input and submissions from individuals attending the University of Denver, with the intent to create “Core Memories”, significant instances for each individual in existence that derives from our raw Emotions and meaningful Moments we all experience throughout our lives. The intention is for the audience to contemplate and engage with the ‘Remembrance Archive | Memory Cloud’, a unique database that maintains this archive of Core Memories physically and digitally.

This project consists of a P5.JS visualization program that takes the data gathered from the previous sister exhibit “Emotional Taxonomy”, ‘Core Memories’, as well as online digital profiles and presences, to power its dynamic effects. The program will display a digital visualization that will is projected or viewed on a digital screen. The visualization’s initial and resting background color is primarily black and dark, however, shifts and changes in color and fading images within in the background will occur as Core Memories are cycled through and displayed on screen. These Memories will be legible words randomly pulled from a bank of submitted statements (one to two sentence phrases) fading in momentarily to be read, and then dissipating into many particles, and then the process repeats.

There is the possibility of a live coding performance to the exhibit if there is enough time and participation from the attending audience. Individuals would be provided ‘Emotive Cards’ from the previous exhibit to fill out, and then the artist would be able to input their data live through the online P5.JS application browser.