Warmware- Forget me not

The image of a standing in front of an open fridge and not remembering what it was that you were looking for really stuck with me after the presentation on Tuesday afternoon because I felt it was one of the most common issues. I thought I’d use the contents of the fridge as connections to the bits and pieces of the emotional story. This way the viewer is waiting for or gets the idea of ‘what’s next’, what am I looking at, the viewer gets the sense of frustration and randomness, the way many people with memory problems often feel. The interface I have chosen to use is an internet website. Every time you roll over an item in the fridge it will link to a particular emotion or memory attached to the taste, smell, look or feel of each food item. The website will allow people with memory loss to document their memories in their own account or fridge. They can customize their own fridge according to their memory progress they make, this way the website can encourage their random non-linear memory patterns, possibly encouraging new random links, almost in the same fashion as brainstorming. The site will document blogs, and other media dealing with memory issues connecting many individuals with memory loss.

For example when someone logs into their fridge account on the website they can investigate it buy moving items around in the fridge, giving certain items priority or significance depending of what visually represents priority to each individual. The example I have shown here is that if you clicked on the Mayonnaise in this person’s fridge you would find that they have associated it with memories of their father’s distaste for it, not necessarily their own experiences with the item themselves. After clicking on the Mayonnaise the website would make a picture chart showing that it is connected to a specific memory/thought and then when you scroll down it will explain it in words.

Each fridge has a password so that only the amnesic people will able to add to or change their fridge. Although only people with memory difficulties will be able to customize a fridge, family and friends in the support network of a recovering amnesic can still have an account on the “forget me not” virtual community. This way the support network for someone who is amnesic is also supported. If the family and friends of the amnesic individuals want to help them, they can ask them to add something to their fridge by posting a message to the blog or e-mail them via the complementary e-mail you get when you sign up with “forget me not”. E-mail coming to this account can be forwarded to other e-mails. From this e-mail they can retrieve newsletters about topics concerning memory loss, the research on memory loss, and stories about other people who have dealt with or are dealing with memory loss issues. Members of “forget me not” may communicate with other people in the virtual community including their support networks (that have also signed up) via the community blog, and via “forget me not” e-mail. This website will also have links to other websites of interest and a video library or homemade video diary of people from the community or perhaps of anything concerning the topic of memory, some people may honour their memories by making a video reminder of a certain point in their past or an event to come. There will also be a picture library documenting images connected to memory issues. The link shows a video compilation of a possible video memory of someone’s dad through pictures and music.



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.