Please note that this project is given as an artistic example of recent '2.0' interpretations of the Camillo theme. We hope that this project can be part of the actual programme of PSi #17, but we cannot confirm this as yet.
In the age of cyberspace and telepresence Emil Hrvatin has created an installation dealing with the connection of our physical bodies to memory. The goal is for participants to sync their bodies with their memories.
“In The Cabinet of Memories the visitor/ participant/ memory retriever has the possibility to enter three rooms/ boxes/ cabinets: those of Individual Memory, of Collective Memory, and, if nothing works out, the participant is asked to enter the Cabinet of Physiological Memory” (Grzinic 2002). The participant’s goal is to fetch a memory and deliver proof of this: “The act of reinvention of memory is connected with crying, with fluids from the body, as the participant has to prove his or her successful achievement of memories by crying. In the Cabinet of Individual Memory, by donating tears that are collected in test-tube eyeglasses, the participant receives the golden certificate. The award is proof of the efficiency capturing the memories without a prosthesis; no extra help is given in the celestial blue box.” In the Cabinet of Collective Memory, the participant receives a little more help: a touch screen grants access to scenes from tear jerk movies or news clips of dramatic events. In the Cabinet of Physiological Memory, the participant is bound to succeed, as slices of an onion are put under the nose.
In all three Cabinets action is required in order to retrieve memory, reminding us that “memory is a territory without a space and that it is not possible to achieve memory without activity. Memory is not an institution but a process of constitution. And the scrub of the onion under the nose is an act of reality. In this performance of repressive and therapeutically applied methods it represents the system that puts under question the neutrality of communication.”
References
Marina Grzinic, 'Emil Hrvatin’s Memory Cabinets'. In: Performance Art Journal 71 (2002): 108-114.
View this article online
