Expanded Play Sessions is the first of a series of events and a festival taking place in Zaragoza (Spain) as part of the international project Milla Digital and the Centre for Art & Technology Zaragoza. The event brings together creative professionals, artists, industry leaders and academics to discuss innovation, trends and challenges in the gaming and digital media industry and the arts.
Expanded Play Sessions stand out as a tightly-curated gathering to further creativity through technology and art practice as Play.

scanMemories Documentary will be screened at the Digital Water Pavilion in Zaragoza, Spain on July 18th 2009 at 19h.

The Digital Water Pavilion is a singular and innovative project of Milla Digital, implemented by Expoagua Zaragoza 2008 on behalf of the City of Zaragoza. Located in the connection node of the Expo site with the Milla Digital area, the DWP joins the theme of water with the digital technologies, creating a sense of continuity towards the future for the big projects of transformation nowadays in course in Zaragoza. This Pavilion of minimalist expression and small dimensions is, at the same time: a sophisticated machine of high mechanical precision; a building appearing and desappearing thanks to a 12 hydraulic pistons system; and a place where spaces are flexible, changing and responsive due to the action of 120 meters of water walls digitally controlled by almost 3.000 electromagnetique valves. It has been designed by Carlo Ratti Associati, developping the interactive water wall concept created by the Smart Cities Group (MIT Media Laboratory) with the direction of Prof. William J. Mitchell.

The scanMemories documentary will be screened in december 2009 at the JWT London head office.

FutureEverything is an award winning, world class organisation using mass participation in creativity and social innovation to bring the future into the present. It has a strong global network and international profile, and is recognised around the world for leading pioneering projects and important international debates.

We have been invited to ISEA 2008. This year it takes place in Singapore at the end of July.

I will talk about the public installation of scanMemories in the Municipal Cemetery of Zaragoza and the installation in Expo 2008.

ISEA, the International Symposium on Electronic Art initiated in 1988, is the world’s premier media arts event for the critical discussion and showcase of creative productions applying new technologies in interactive and digital media. Held biannually in various cities throughout the world, this migratory event is being held in Asia for the second time in its history, after Singapore successfully secured this bid.

The issues of memory and identity have repeatedly been pushed forward by technological innovations, and disciplines like digital art has examined through direct and practical exploration using technology. As wireless networks become ubiquitous and augmented spaces are created by the means of new technologies, the scope of information available through digital networks become part affect the meaning and cultural values assigned to physical places.

When Lisa goes to the park with her children, she often goes to the big centenary tree where she used to play with her mother. Once her mother passed away, she scattered her ashes in the park, next to the tree where they used to play. Like other memory practices published in a newspaper article that I presented in the beginning of this chapter, she found that the place represented who her mother was better than any other burial place, and it was what more meaningful for her when she remembers of the moments she spent there with her.

There are no photos at home, or texts that she used to read to me, or different places that make me feel so close to her as this tree in the park. It is in here where I connect again with her memories and it is here where I want now mi children to know about her. It is experiential, meaningful.

Lisa brings her children to play around the tree and tells stories about their grandmother. With a wireless network, a mobile device and a method to situate a point of access and restriction to the information in the tree, she retrieves her mother’s digital memories in the park.

scanMemories Project enables a way of filtering information in the physical space as search algorithms do on the Internet as a person aims to retrieve information in a particular networked space. By enabling interaction and intervening the physical space using wireless, mobile technologies and databases, new creative private practices in public spaces are possible where the social and cultural aspects of memory practices can be enhanced and challenged.

We are presenting scanMemories in Japan next month. I am still not sure I will be able to travel but Inyong will certainly make it. I am trying to set up a live installation in the municipal cemetery in Yokohama but due to time constrains we do not know whether it is going to be possible. I would like to thank Emma Ota, who is the curator, for all her help.

Dislocate is a project which examines the relationship between art, technology and locality. Designed to facilitate international dialogue between artists, researchers and the public, Dislocate encourages exchange and reflection upon our experiences and perceptions of the interplay between these elements.

This year the events will focus on our ability to reconnect with our location, seeking to explore, question and debate how can technology be used to heighten our engagement with our surroundings instead of isolating us from our immediate space.

Dislocate aims to explore the potential new media has to increase our awareness of our environment, enhance participation in our locality and community and transform our perceptions of the space we inhabit.

One of the most interesting narratives that emerges when using scanMemories or in general with networked technologies in memory practices is the possibility to situate memories ‘in’ or ‘around’ objects. As memory is a culturally mediated material practice, the interaction with material objects builds up an increasing repository of events, emotions and history over time. Material objects become mementos, relics… and shape the metaphors of the past or the absent that help us make and re-create memories.

One of scanMemories functionalities allows to tag different objects using RFID to be associated with specific memories and with the person who is telling the story or remembering. That new layer of information in the form of memories can only be retrieved from the object. In this scanMemories feature, we show how Marie uses our system to tell and link her memories to her own crafts.

I re-create memories when I make my sculptures. Sometimes not only is the materiality of crafts what I would like my grandchildren to see in the future, but also I would like them to be able to hear the stories, sounds and images that were inside my head during the evocative process of making.

Marie is a painter and sculptor and she wants to leave some of her work to her grandchildren. By using scanMemories, Marie began to document her experiences and thoughts while making new artworks and revisiting previous ones. Once she is not there any more to tell her grandchildren the evoking stories of each sculpture or painting, each piece will have its own digital narrative Marie created. The RFID chip will enable connectivity and identification and the scanMemories system will allow any person near the object, specially her grandchildren, to retrieve the digital memories while they contemplate and touch the physical object.

The framework of networked physical objects that enable participation has been defined as The Internet of Things by author Bruce Sterling and neologisms such as Blogjects or SPIMES, define and illustrate this world of RFID tags and networked sensors that enable “things” to be connected to the Internet and participate within social networks.

Diffraction is an unmissable networking opportunity for leaders in art, academia, industry, regional development, research and policy fields. It is bringing together representatives from the arts and industry sectors, leaders in the field of cross-disciplinary innovation from the UK and abroad, to present case studies of previous projects, debate challenges and identify opportunities for collaborations in the future.

We are invited to attend as part of the ITEM artists program, and we would like to thank Wibke and her great team for the hard work and support. It is going to be a fabulous event.

FACT, the Foundation for Art & Creative Technology is the UK’s leading organisation for the commissioning and presentation of film, video and new media art forms. We have been selected to take part in the ITEM program and awarded a grant to develop our research.

ITEM is a pilot research and development programme aimed at exploring and developing the potential of new media tools for exhibition and exposition. Organised by FACT and supported by NESTA (National Endowment for Science, technology and the Arts) and Arts Council England, the programme is supporting a small cluster of research projects that bring together artists and technologists to explore the possible future directions of new media technologies.