table of contents 1 Digital memory
the human-technology romance amnesia and digital amnesia post-humanisms: till the day we become augmented smart is the new sexy initial storyline (week 4)
2 Human memory
imagining the future is a kind of nostalgic space that holds memory Kowloon walled city (1898-1994) the memory palace
3 Landscape memory
any landscape is a condition of the spirit earth’s memory when landscape making art, collided with human culture the North Sea at 12,000 years ago the Hunstanton’s Cliff
4 Memories: conclusion
5 Collage inspirations
6 Week 1: reflection on Takis exhibition
7 Week 2: reflection on Leonardo Da Vinci sketches 8 Week 3: early concept illustration 9 Week 4: early concept illustration
10 Reflection
The human-technology romance
What is relationship about?
Sharing memories, sharing good times, as good companions, as listener... Is it your smart-phone’s role? But can technology really duplication human emotions and ethics? Would you like to spend the rest of your time dating an emotionless machine?
Can you really trust your digital devices? Imagine it your device is not secure with pass-code, or got stolen away, detected virus in it... and all your precious information just disappear in that second. How would you react? Aaron Chervenak, 34, of Los Angeles married his smart-phone at The Little Vegas Chapel in Nevada last month
‘So in a sense my smart-phone has been my longest relationship,’ he added. ‘That’s why I decided to see what it was like to actually marry a phone.’
People are ready to forget important information in the belief that it can be immediately retrieved from a digital device. Smart-phone is the new human companion, it is with us everywhere and anywhere - helping us to navigate, to capture moments, to communicate, to pay for the meal... The majority of connected consumers in the UK can’t recall critical phone numbers from memory, including:
Source: Kaspersky lab
Psychology test shows that people take smart-phone as equally important as their close friends compare to their parents or partner
Source: Kaspersky lab early researches
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Amnesia & Digital amnesia
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Post-humanisms: till the day we become augmented Are human aware that the fast development in technology will replace human races soon enough if we do not take the autonomy. Human extinction will no be just on the play in the movie but become one of the cruel reality. Human have started to implant technology in their body not only to cure the shortness but to enhance their physical abilities. If the day of extinction is approaching, who will you stand with? The human or the augmented human?
photo: Time Magazine February 21 2011, Vol. 177, No. 7 cover
Technologies will be embedded under human skin, becoming part of our body system. Cyborgs will be the future where human will not die until we destroy our digital code or the system is out of date. Body organisms can be easily replaced. Memories trading started to grow among human species when we start to realise the huge lost in our memories.
photo: cyborg from Alita
photo: scene from Blade Runner 2049 early researches
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Smart is the new sexy
From size of a room, to size of a refrigerator, to size of cake, to size of matchbox, to the invisible storage.
1834 1952 Magnetic tape punch card
1956
Rope memory which contain the navigation and guidance software serve as the fixed memory in Apollo missions to the moon.
1969 RAMAC hard disk 1970 read-only core rope memory
IBM computer using semiconductor magnetic core
1971 1974 Intel memory chip 1976
mass storage system using 4-inch long cylinders of magnetic tape 1978
In AGC, each core has 192 sense wires passing through (or around) it, so each core stored 12 words of data.
dynamic random-access memory (DRAM)
a 1 bit was stored by threading a wire through a core, while the wire bypassed the core for a 0 bit.
Weaving the memory module 1979
LaserDisc
Shugart 5 1/4-inch flexible disk drive
Bubble memory
doughnut shape magnetic core placing in a component holder
20 feet of wire is store in the needle
weaving of wire into cores manually
program of the fixed memory is performed by using machine which indexes to a particular locations of a core, then needle manually insert through the right core.
tape reader that connected to the machine
module place into test equipment
memory module contains over half a mile of wire, functioning to store over 65,000 individual pieces of information
running wires on the backside of the tray allow the interconnection of module to module. the pattern of the wire is determine by computer programme
temperature and vibration test of the tray running through by computer
1983 1992
CD Room
SSD module 1997 1999
Compact Disc - ReWritable (CD-RW)
IBM Microdrive 2000 2006
USB Flash drive Amazon Web Services - Cloudbased services
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Initial storyline (week 4)
of trading memory
The past The history
The once flourish underwater village - Dunwich
Trading port (import and export from Europe)
Nature claimed it property. Coastal erosion and storm place the village under the sea at 12th century.
The present Realising the history and the importance of memory recording
Diver and researcher start their journey of rediscover the underwater city using the aid of technology.
Using technology as a tool To reconnect people To communicate To heal To help
Overusing of technology Becoming the slave of technology.
Smart-phone Computer Fitness watch Robot surgeon Smart-house
Lack of empathy, emotions
Digital amnesia Augmented species
The future Trading the memory
Technology remain as the supplementing tool
Memory as currency
Human work in the virtual world
Virtual world vs. reality
Work to exchange with the hours to spent in the real world to gain memory.
*Refer to pg. 32 for the illustrations.
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Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgic
sometime the only truly safe place to keep information is your own brain How long will your data survive?
cloud storage
sensory memory
short term memory
0 seconds
4 seconds
18-30 seconds
smart-phone
hard drive
long term memory
2-3 years
3-5 years
lifetime
1989
2600
1990
2029
1982
2049
FILM: Human ability to pre-living the scene
Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong
Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong
1982 film set it 2019, Los Angeles
2018 film set in 2600
1995 film set in 2029
2017 film set in 2049
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Space that holds memory
Kowloon walled city, Hong Kong
Ask former residents what they miss most about the Walled City and most say the friendship. “Even now, many people stay in touch with each other even though some old friends are overseas,� Shum said. “People who lived there were always loyal to each other. In the Walled City, the sunshine always followed the rain.
Having the ability to predict the future is not a bad idea but this will constrains human from
expecting the unexpected. Memory can be the foundation of the future, but the ability to imagine will create surprise for the near future. People who once lived
in the Kowloon Walled City back in the 1970s still have the memory of their good old days in the small 6.5acres of land with the rest of the 33,000 residents in there. Architecture and landscape
elements to recall while create memory
1989
1973
1898
1973-1993
for human beings.
is this enough to remember the past?
Life is poor, with no quality; but what all the pictures displayed are the fondest memory they created and owned in their little space.
2019
shall be the
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Koowloon walled city 1898-1994 33, 000 people
Rooftop
8, 800 homes activity dumping area area
fresh air
1, 000 business
Internal atmosphere
hot due to the large amount of cables running in the city
little sunlight access to the ground
300 interconnected buildings pipe leaking and hanging laundry along the corridor caused the wet alley.
40 square foot/ room 2.8 hectares (4 football fields)
The dens Way finding
brothels
opium house
In the space, people are allow to explore the warren of stairways and interconnecting corridors that weaved their way across the City at nearly every level. The alley was often only 1m-2m wide.
unlicensed dentist
Architecture limit Airport which located 800m is the only limitation to the building height. All the rooms were constructed without any architects.
14 storeys
213m 126m
City of anarchy
1950s -1970s, the Chinese triads having control of the city. It is lawless due to a territorial dispute between China and British Hong Kong.
City of memory
Coexisting of generations in the small square feet of space created puzzle of memory to a lot of the hongkongers. Put away the negative side of the city, people lived in a pleasurable and happy state throughout the years, with their business, leisure and living all in the limited space. It is a picture of the co-working space that we are now recreating.
“I don’t know why, in my dream, I always come back.” -residence of Kowloon Walled City.
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The memory palace
Using architecture element to provoke human memory as well as to allow human races to decide how their future memory should be.
“Temple of time” by Emma Willard at 1846 to record the chronological world history by imagining architecture details in three dimension mental spaces.
“Memory Palace” by Es Devlin at 2019 displaying a chronological landscape mapping pivotal shifts in human perspective over 75 millennia, while to invoke our collective memories and to provoke dialogue and debate.
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Any landscape is a condition of the spirit
it not only about pleasure, also associated with loss, pain, sense of belongings.
Edward Relph suggested in his book “Place and placelessness� that identity of place is comprised of three interrelated components, each irreducible to the other - physical features or appearance, observable activities and functions, and meaning or symbols.
Meaning of landscape Involvement of human
Physical components Ice watch by Olafur Eliasson (2018)
Cultural landscape Honghe Hani Rice Terraces (1, 300 years ago)
forest farm valley
community geographical space
activities and functions
physical components
home architecture
Landscape identity
library
culture
experience
diversity routine
cemetery monument
waterfall
glacier
mountain
landmark
symbols and meanings insideness and outsideness
intention towards place
attitude towards place
selective vision
public identity
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Earth’s memory
history is memory
Continental Drift was developed mostly by Alfred Wegener in the early part of the 20th century. Plants fossils, animal fossils and rocks, mountain range and glaciers that have similar characteristic had suggested that the land are previously sharing the same memory in a different form. Earth recording it changes by the occurring of natural phenomenal, in this case plate tectonics. Today, natural geologic processes such as volcanic eruptions , coastal erosion, earthquake and tsunamis have further creating both pleasant and unpleasant memory of Earth. 500 million years ago
Laurentia (present-day North America) Baltica (present-day northern Europe)
300 million years ago
Earth entering ice age
200 million years ago
dinosaurs around the super-continent Pangea.
100 million years ago
50 million years ago
now
Pangaes broke apart.
continental fragments collided, forming mountain ranges. Himalaya and other Europe Alps formed.
climate change might decrease the land size of the continents and some of the island might disappear into the ocean.
In 2004, the British Antarctica Survey ice core scientists work together with the scientists from European nations extracted 3000m ice core from Antarctica, giving the record of the Earth’s climate stretching back 800,000 years - the oldest continuous climate record. Climate change is showing an alarming sign on Earth, by studying the history of Earth’s climate allowing us to understand more about the changes throughout the years. Natural has let Earth went through Ice Age, Jurassic extinction event to Quaternary glaciation. Landscape have the ability to shape itself across the seasons and through climate change to remind human about it memory of the past and the sense of place.
ice core extraction through the Antarctica’s ice sheet. Fossils and bacteria that found in the ice core suggested different climate events.
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When landscape making art, collided with human culture “The landscape itself, to those who know how to read it aright is the richest historical record we possess.�
Antarctica
Scottland
Machu Picchu
landscape devoid of life
Lewisian gneisses (3, 000 million years ago)
engineering of nature elements
rare landscape that the closest analogue is the surface of Mars.
Metamorphic Rocks (1, 000 million years ago)
no language to record memory.
melting of the biggest iceberg leading to rise in sea level - worldwide
Calanais Standing Stones ( 5,000 years ago)
engagement with landscape
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The North Sea at 12,000 years ago Doggerland
had a rich landscape of hills, rivers and lakes and a coastline comprising lagoons, marshes and beaches. It had woodlands of oak, elm, birch, willow, alder, hazel and pine. It was home to horses, aurochs, deer, elks and wild pigs. Waterfowl, otters and beavers abounded in wetland areas and the seas, lakes and rivers teemed with fish. It was probably the richest hunting and fishing ground in Europe at the time and had an important influence on the course of prehistory in north-western Europe as maritime and river-based societies adapted to this environment.
the memory hunting
fishing
Doggerland North Norfolk coastline King’s Lynn
1
2
nomadic life
the present weybourne cart cap
3
4
The deep history coast 1. the Cromer Shoals Chalk Bed - largest chalk reef in Europe, longest in the world 2. glacial feature formed 450,000 years ago 3. fossil hunting on West Runton beach 4. Hunstanton cliff that is under continuous erosion from the sea and weather.
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The Hunstanton Cliff west west 21km 21km
facing facing coast coast of of the the Wash Wash in in Norfolk Norfolk north east of King’s Lynn north east of King’s Lynn
Cretaceous period
It formed by the changing depositional conditions from 108-99 million year ago. Earth was experiencing greenhouse conditions with corresponding high sea levels (250m above today’s sea level) and very high global mean temperatures.
Home for approximately 5,000 people (2011)
Carstone used as building material around King’s Lynn and about as far east as Wells-next-the-Sea.
Retreated by 30m since 1885 due to coastal erosion.
White Ferriby Chalk Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian stage) 99 million year ago Planktonic algae (Coccolithophores)
coccolithophores accumulated forming white ooze on the seafloor, then compacted and harden to form chalk.
Red Chalk (Hunstanton formation) Early Cretaceous (Albian stage) 101 million year ago Macrofossils: Belemnites, Brachiopods, Echinoids, Corals Red colouration due to presence of limestone ore.
It is eroding at average rate of
3m every 10 years.
Strategies to manage flood and erosion risk to local communities between Hunstanton and Wolferton Creek: base netting, sand bags, gabions and a rock sill
Carstone formation Early Cretaceous (Albian stage) 108 million year ago rolled ammonite fragment, bivalves and traces of burrowing organisms. dark orange-brown colouration due to sandstone rich in iron ore.
long term flood risk from rivers, the sea, surface water and some groundwater
hunstanton
Erosion prediction based on SCAPE (Soft Cliff and Platform Erosion) 2017-2030: 0.30m/ year 2030-2060: 0.33m/ year 2060-2117: 0.39m/ year
high
medium
low
very low
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Landscape Shall landscape and space be the main elements of recalling and storing memory, not to record down in the digital world but in human long term memory. It is where human found their sense of identity and belongings. It is to answer
Human Human be the
Memory
“Who we are?”
Digital digital slavery
becoming the critical issue across the globe and people are approaching the era of digital amnesia. Average mobile usage (which includes both smart-phones and tablets) has increased from average of
catalyst and holder of the memory, We do
not need to be another mental athlete but to allow the memory to store in our brain inevitably by using the basic components around us. Then to “download” and revise it when needed. Human is supported by 100 billion neurons with is equal to a working capacity of around 2.5 petabytes. (One petabyte equates to 2,000 years-worth of MP3 song files.)
0.3 hours per day in 2008 to
3.3 hours a day in 2017 Do we want this situation to continue?
Save our memory now!
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Collage inspirations Marshall Brown “I work a lot with material, I work a lot with history, as a medium... It is not about history as a trap or frame, it is about using history as a time and medium. It is about looking at what comes before and make an illustration about the future. As an architect, the things that we create are fiction, there are picture of the world that are not yet exist, I write story and video that I call future history, which actually tell the story of the project from 20 to 50 to 100 years in the future...�
Toshio Shibata Japanese photographer who capture the weaving of natural elements with man-made structures.
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Takis: Poetry, Transmission and Space
The real artist you cannot touch. -Takis
Electro-Magnetic Music (1966)
Electro-Magnetic Music (1966)
‘Electro-Magnetic Music’, Takis, 1966
Human, astronaut, alien by michelle leong sze yee
We are human, whom tied to the gravitational force, they are alien - the uncertainties, whom hold the freedom human craved. Invisible and visible forces, both on planet Earth, one tries to lead another, the connections are barely observed by the naked eye. There will be one day when the forces running out of range, it starts to link with the ambiguities, humans start to feel the freedom to escape, fly, human, be the astronaut. Human, Astronaut, Alien, are they all the same? they are just a tool for the transmission of forces, they live in the space in between. Space as the cosmos; space as the unoccupied capsule.
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{week 1 Takis’s exhibition reflection I} What is the forces that hold human together in the 21st century? The gravitational force of different planets and the virtual world. Human each has their own frequency/ memory, which might interact with each other in their lifespan. The invisible forces between human us yet the visible, then human become part of it.
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Which
force s is in co ntrol The v ? isibl e, or the i nvisi ble
.
Layer by la yer s com e t o gethe in th r e sam e fre quenc y, or not. all f orce
wood
elect
paint
ro-
t
magne
ro-
music
magne
tic
elect
magne
t
spark plugs ampli
fier
metal
wire
. . . . . . .
300s 600s 900s 1200s . . . . . . .
needl
e
! Takis
x
“ Electromagnetic forces used in the work give it a life of its own and may affect thesse timings in unpredictable ways”
Ambiguity of forces
{week 1 Takis’s exhibition reflection II} The ambiguity of forces early researches
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Sketches: learning from Leonardo Da Vinci
Leonardo is interested in painting, sculpture, architecture, anatomy, engineering, cartography, geology and botany which leaving us a variety of drawings today. His depth of knowledge and sense of exploration in each pieces of his drawing are what I pick up from the exhibition - from the details study of horses to process drawings of a horse’s left foreleg.
(VINCI 1452-AMBOISE 1519) The drapery of a kneeling figure
(VINCI 1452-AMBOISE 1519) Recto: A rearing horse, and heads of horses, a lion and a man. Verso: Notes and diagrams on astronomy and geometry, and the head of a horse c.1503-4
(VINCI 1452-AMBOISE 1519) A tempest c.1513-18
(VINCI 1452-AMBOISE 1519) Recto: The bones, muscles and tendons of the hand. Verso: The bones of the hand
Images taken from the ‘Leonardo Da Vinci: A Life in Drawing’ exhibition at The Queen’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse early researches
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{week 2 draft sketches} The process and exchange of memory early researches
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{week 2 draft sketches} The services early researches
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{week 2 sketches} The process of reproducing memory In the next 30 year, human will become augmented. Technology will be able to help human to preserve their memory and human can claim their memory. A memory reproduction machine is created to enable human to utilise kinetic energy to active the memory machine.
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{week 2 sketches} The exchange of memory “SpaceX’s aspirational goal is to land the first humans on Mars by 2024.” Memory of Earth shall be transmitted to Mars. Without memory, human will be like an alien without history in Mars. The sketches is inspired by movie Inside Out.
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{week 2 sketches} The service Brain will not die. Science and technology enable human to feed and alter their memory.
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{week 2 sketches} The service Memory becomes the currency of life. Human realising the importance of memory after they move to Mars and the only way to claim back their memory is through the memory trader.
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{week 3 illustration} Digitization of memories x Digital amnesia In this digital age, all generations are depending on technologies in an unimaginable high rate. Around 36% of the world’s population are embracing smart-phones in 2019. This rate will only show an increasing number in no time because humans are having an “affair” with technologies. Memories store in the digital world is vague, everything is floating in the virtual fake world; it losses the immediate relationship between humans. Human uses technologies to record instant moments, more than to enjoy using their sensory organs… early researches
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“Mama, why do you remember all the things that have been disappeared? Why can you still smell the ‘perfume’ that everyone else has forgotten?” “I suppose because I’m always thinking about them,” “But i don’t understand.Why are you the only one who hasn’t lost anything? Do you remember everything? Forever?” (Ogawa, 2019)
{week 3 illustration}
People will have lost their collective and cultural memories when the world technologies declare broke down and entering the digital dark age. A smart-phone can last for an average of two to three years… A hard drive can last for three to five years… A cloud storage can last only if the providers are in business and your data is not out of date…and you do not forget the login information…and the tendency to lost in the next second… Human’s brain can store memories longer than that… What is the step after the smart-phone? early researches
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{week 3 illustration}
“ And you know that in the long journey ahead of you, when to keep awake against the camel’s swaying or the junk’s rocking, you start summoning up your memories one by one, your wolf will have become another wolf, your sister a different sister, your battle other battles, on your return to Euphemia, the city where memory is traded at every solstice and at every equinox.” (Calvino, 1972, 367) “On a dying planet we are dying sooner. It’s like being in an otherwise quiet room with the loud ticking of a nearby clock. Can’t you hear it?” -Astra Taylor early researches
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{week 4 collage} The past: the history
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{week 4 collage} The present: realising the history and the importance of memory recording
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{week 4 collage} The future: trading the memory
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Reflections on illustration and collages • image is too illustrative • items on the collages need to be specific and precise • more researches needed to back up the collages, or else it will only look like an illustration piece without background story. • Digital memory and digital amnesia are vague terms that human created, it does not have a clear definition.
Next: • focusing on the human and landscape memory instead of digital memory • carrying out research on the Hanseatic city - King’s Lynn to extract the collective memory of the place. • carrying out researches on the coastal villages along Norfolk. • develop concepts of recording memory on the landscape along the coastline.
{week 1- week 5 researches} END early researches
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