Regenerative Topic

The piece I thought had the most potential for generative topics was from Aspect volume 4, Text and Language. "Screen," by Noah Wardrip-Fruin, is an installation where viewers witness paragraphs about memories appear around them. Some of the words can be manipulated with the movement of the person standing in the room. As more of the words become dislodged, the original meaning of the essays become harder to understand. If the participant dislocates enough words, there is a massive breakdown in the structure of all of the writing, and it collapses.

The writing itself deals with memories; when the viewer shuffles the words around, it causes the text to make less sense. People rely on their memory to define who they are and what they believe in, but how reliable is human memory? How do we define ourselves if memory goes away, or is suddenly thrown into question?

The problem with human memories is that they will always just be reenactments, and subject to inaccuracies. Other times, people willfully or subconsciously omit details that detract from how they want to remember something. These ideas all relate back to the basic concept brought forward by "Screen," that memory is intrinsically linked to humanity's perceptions and understanding of the world, even though it is entirely mutable and subject to change.

Possible projects I could assign students: I could have them illustrate an event or idea from their lives, then have them illustrate it again, but omitting something or leaving out a key detail. I could also have them recreate a work, their own or a well-known piece, entirely from memory.


Eyewitness Memory
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