What Are You To Me?

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A few of us went and visited the installation “What Are You to Me?” in the Centrespace Gallery yesterday afternoon. In their own words:

What Are You To Me? Is an interactive multimedia installation that explores how we might remember the lives of our grandparents, taking audiences on their own personal journey through the fragmented re-imagining of three culturally diverse families. It is an archive of memories, where sights, sounds and smells become the trigger for audiences to access their own memories, wishes and regrets.

The installation provided a great opportunity for us to think about ways of triggering memories. Some ideas we discussed after the visit included:

  • The tags only contained a small amount of text but were really good at evoking a whole scene. Keeping stories short, or at least having a synopsis seems like a good idea.
  • The use of smells/odours/scents was really interesting when combined with the tags.

View through an old handheld slide viewer:
slide

The smell library:
smell

Tags and photos:
peg-photo

Objects for Reminiscence

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Objects for Reminiscence

Books provide a tangible, familiar interface for reminiscence. We are co-designing with older people to produce print on demand books based on their memories. As well as the predictable text and images, the pages also contain AR triggers, which allow the reader to access audio and video giving an extra dimension to the reminiscences.

Part of the co-designing process is to develop a blueprint of tasks that can be followed by other older people and their carers/relatives who want to create their own books. The aim is to develop a website where this formula can be accessed, in order, ultimately, to make this project scalable and available to all.

Objects of Escape

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Objects of Escape

We are exploring how virtual reality technology and interactive furniture can be used as a way for older people to access memories. In the comfort of a rocking chair, using virtual reality goggles or audio speakers, it is possible to experience favourite places and the great outdoors in 3D or in stereo, through 360º images or evocative soundscapes. These journeys of the imagination can rekindle past memories and help to assist reminiscence and storytelling.

 

Projects

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Projects

We are currently exploring four areas of research around object and stories. Objects for storytelling, objects for reminiscence, objects of exchange and objects of escape.

Below are all the blog posts about the different projects we are working on across the Tangible Memories project:

Objects containing Stories

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Objects containing Stories

We are interested in the stories people tell about objects. The technologies we are developing via two of our projects allow people to listen to and record their own stories. TaleTap lets you listen to stories contained in objects and record your own. ButtonTuner uses the TaleTap to tune into music contained in our interactive cushion with a different song contained in each button.

Objects of Exchange

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Objects of Exchange

We are currently working with the residents to explore different ways that we can co-produce designs and objects together, using creative processes and communal making sessions. The idea is to generate meaningful new objects, where personal artefacts from the past may have been lost, and at the same time, to generate new memories, through the shared creative process. The new objects could become tokens for exchange and sharing within the care home environment.

Daphne painting