The dream review exercise really got me thinking about the physical output of my thesis Here is the review on Hayden Carey’s exhibition by Hayden Carey.

In Hayden Carey’s new exhibition, you can’t help but ooh and aah, raise your eyebrows, wonder how this is executed. Though the input and responses feel magic, the installation itself is magical, the most enchanting part is the feeling as you walk away. You are curious, in awe by what you just saw. It’s experimental, playful, yet also meaningful and sincere. There is no better way to capture someone’s essence, to tell someone’s story. You walking away knowing who someone is, feeling what they feel, stepping in their shoes.

From what we have seen with many historical exhibitions, facts and reason are the main vehicles for learning about someone’s life. When you visit museums, there are artifacts, plaques, and facts about their lives. Hayden’s exhibit does so much more. This exhibit brings you into a narrative without feeding you the narrative. You can’t get to know someone through facts and reason instead; you learn about someone through feeling. Leaving the exhibit,I questioned: What are the things, places that make up who I am? D your memories make up who you are? Do objects embody your memories? Can you truly know someone through objects? I thought to myself: What would a Hayden-style exhibit look like if it was my story being followed?

Hayden’s exhibition consists of a series of multi-media, interactive installations. Each installation is formatted same, yet each impact is so different. Though it’s not obvious at first, as you interact with each step, you realize who you are learning about. Each experience comes together to tell a cohesive narrative. 

Each installation follows a formula. Each stop sets a scene. You walk up to one of the dioramas portraying someone’s life. Think of the recreated period scenes you see at the Met. It’s beautifully crafted and each detail has a purpose. At first, it appears static, purely representational. As you play with the objects of the diorama, you find clues, explore different possibilities, and eventually, each scene unlocks something special. Each diorama comes together to tell the complete story of someone’s life.

With each installation, there are three moving parts:

First, there’s the audience input that unlocks the full story. This is when you set the train in motion. This is up to the audience to figure out. You play with, investigate, talk to the objects at each diorama. At one, you have to hold their things. At another, you are asked to move your body in a certain way that mimics who the subject is. There’s another that asks you to write about something dear to you. The final one asks you to leave the museum, take a photo of a place, and return the following day. Each of these inputs is representative of the larger story it’s trying to tell.

Then there’s the response to the input.  At each installation, a stunning projection appears on the wall in front of you. Some are more abstract than others. Other’s depict a clear time and place. Each is as beautiful as the next one. They each depict a memory of the subject. You then spotlight the projection onto the prop set, and that’s when you realize what you witnessed is special. 

Finally, there’s the diorama’s physical response. Once the set is spotlighted, there’s the reveal. A small physical manipulation to the diaramma opens adds another layer to who that person is.

That all I will reveal for now. I will say that you are not alone during this experience. You are communicating with the subject of the installation, as well as those around you without even knowing. 

Get tickets, take the time to walk through Hayden’s exhibit, let it sink in. For many, it may not click. For others, you won’t be forgetting this anytime soon. You may want one for yourself, for a friend, for a family member.

Here are notable points from my research that got me thinking: 

  • So I’m interested in the places that make up our memories. I learned about the distinction between space and place. Space refers to the structural and geometrical qualities of a physical environment, place includes dimensions of lived experience, interaction and use of space. Spaces themselves aren’t important. It’s the experiences we go through at these spaces that make them places. A place allows for the emergence of significant events or people’s memory.
  • The IoT and its application to social memories have rarely been discussed. New IoT technologies are traceable. We don’t think of older objects as part of these networked structures. TOTeM provides tagging technologies to older objects and a database to link memories. It’s a mix between a ‘Facebook of things’ and the ‘antique roadshow for the future’, whereby scanning an object replays its past, its associations, its locations, and the memories of its owners.
  • The objects with which we surround ourselves “provoke thoughts and emotions, constitute part of our identity, act as cues in the process of remembering and mediate our relationship to our memories, therefore acting as intermediaries between future and past. A ‘memento’ is generally considered as ‘an object given or deliberately kept as a reminder of a person, place or event.’”
  • “. In other words, the act of memory incorporates the creation of memory products as well as their continuous (re)interpretation. Only from that creative act emerges a continuum between past and present; time and memory shape each other.”
  • The paradox of mediating memories, which is to preserve a sense of the present, but also  takes away from the present because you are not focusing on the present
  • Organic Memory vs Technology-Mediated Memory- Technology increasingly allows us to capture and revisit rich digital records of our lives.
    • Human memory biases promote well-being by adaptively editing our memories, making them more positive. In contrast, TMM often provides rich records of what people actually did and felt, which could disrupt adaptive edits.
    • We have the power to erase our own memories, but technology may now provide us with the opposite, supplementing our unaided “organic memories” by providing rich technologically mediated records of our pasts.
    • TMM may be affecting our well-being
    • Adaptive memory theorists argue that organic memory biases enhance wellbeing by inducing more positive views of the past. TMM may threaten this by showing us endited views of our past and feelings

My first Idea!

Step 1: 

  • The first step is deep research into someone’s life and feelings

Step 2: 

  • Create a diorama full of this individual’s objects, things that mean the most to them. Not only this, I want to capture the “mediocre” things, the things that people don’t think of as capturing who they are. 

Step 3:

  • Create an input system that allows the guest to activate something. They can pick something up, move around, and so on. This triggers a response to Step 4.

Step 4: 

  • An audio-visual projection that goes along with the objects and captures that person’s memory appears on the wall.

Step 5:

  • The physical diorama alters. This experience is to be determined. There is another trigger that affects the physical. 
  • Something mechanical within the diorama is manipulated. I.e a drawer opens by itself