The notion of expressing ourselves within the canvas of our domestic spaces is a deeply rooted practice, steeped in tradition and personal identity. It is an expression that in many ways fulfills a very basic human need to control and adapt our environment, but also key to defining and reinforcing our sense of place.
The objects we choose to surround ourselves with in our domestic space speak of our sense of beauty, and connect us to ideals and beliefs, be they notions of nostalgia or clarity and modernity. (Poco a poco (2015) commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:comercio_de_pelunches_en_Lima_peru._2015-07-28,_DD_47.jpg)
Domestic space and the objects in which we surround ourselves are physical manifestations through which we express ideas, feelings, culture, beliefs and values; the ways in which these reflect upon us are in most cases conscious efforts to change or reinforce parts of our personalities that we identify with.
As more of our daily activities embrace digital content we find an increasing dislocated physical environment, where there was once order described through space and objects, we find a multitude of activities and ambiguity. Grounding our intangible virtual content via more meaningful and intuitive forms, offers the possibility to anchor the meaning and personal connection with information through physical processes and interactions.
The real world spaces we inhabit have evolved beyond their physical characteristics; technology has begun to dissolve into our environment, where wires reached through the fabric of our built environment we now find ourselves immersed in WIFI. From clunky physical media to cloud storage, more and more of the physical elements of our digital footprint are decentralized; in many cases removed form our immediate environment.
The ubiquitous cables that perviously connected our devices, are increasingly unnecessary, and are inevitably consigned out of sight to 'the draw of junk' or bowl in this case.
Without a tangible or physical presence in our personal landscape it becomes increasingly difficult to emotionally connect and relate to some of the most important aspects that we traditionally used to define sense of self. The act of attaching meaning to physical objects and the display of these things (be they invaluable heirlooms or everyday objects) are important, as they can become anchors to the intangible memories and emotions. Take photographs for instance, the convenience and flexibility of digital photography has now become a universal tool and we now take far more photos than ever before, but rarely do we print (physically realize) these images.
The Mona Lisa on display at the Louvre, the increased use of digital photography as an aid to memory starts to describe our general acceptance that the myth of digital storage as an infallible, permanent and reliable augmentation of our physiological memory. (upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/MonaLisaAtLouvre2012.jpg)
The significance these images represent, memories of places, people, meaningful moments of our lives, rarely become physical, often consigned to reside purely in the digital domain. With this in mind I have begun to explore the relationship of digitized memories to our own neurological mass storage, through the design of a series of objects aimed at expressing the intangible digital content through more than simply their function.
AN EXPLORATION INTO CONTEMPORARY DIGITAL LIFE AND THE OBJECTS THAT ENABLE IT 