Memoryscapes

A project by: Emmanuela Ambrosone Dorin Azougy Andrea Alexa Cavallo Lara Coromina Parcet By considering the medium of memory as a constantly evolving archive, Memoryscape finds connections along themes such as the fragmentedness of memory, contrast and repetition, re-creation of situations and events, and the strategy of re-enactment in relation to contemporary dynamics. Over 1500 film slides from multiple unknown sources were found by chance at an antique stall; the photos were initially classified into groups according to intuition, then digitalised through flatbed scanning and further categorised and organised into folders. In order to bridge these gathered images from the past to the modern digital world, this process was developed with the creation of tags through a programmed tagging system which uses machine learning and Google API to “recognise” what the content of each image is. The digitalised, tagged images were collected into a database, where each picture could be retrieved according to its tags. The database is connected to a coded speech-recognition system, which is able to match the live voice input to the selection of images tagged with the same words said out loud. Once the viewer speaks, a new layered image composition emerges, creating a “memoryscape” that blends the viewer’s input with the stored found visual material.