Short Abstract:

In workshop 1 (closed), invited participants examine the format of Museum of Random Memory-MoRM, an arts-based intervention to help citizens explore datafication and the impact of memory morph when data meet other data in tangled infrastructures. Workshop 2 (open to all) is a small exhibit of MoRM.

Long Abstract:

What happens to our data after it leaves our bodies? Where does it travel, who does it meet? What is re/figured as data meet algorithms meet infrastructures and the ensuing interactions among human/nonhuman agencies build unanticipated probabilities of meaning? The Museum of Random Memory (MoRM) is an ongoing series of public art engagements exploring how cultural heritage and future histories are transformed in the present era of widespread networks of information flow, algorithmic interplay, and automated decision-making.

MoRM asks participants for donations of images, ideas, or objects that represent a memory. The ever remixed resulting archive demonstrates continually changing fields of meaning. Once participants decide to donate memories and consider the degree to which this memory should be remembered or forgotten (on a scale of 1-10), the morphing begins. An individual's material choice is made meaningful only in the larger context of others' memory contributions. As memories gather in a common location, they meet other memories, gaining and losing stability in the flow.

In this workshop we explore the agents and stakeholders in these memory and heritage making processes.