Outcome

Intention

The goal of this project is to create a library with stories of people's lives in a digital format. An AI would gather data about the person and suggest particular events that might be important. The person themself would add to their memorial either manually or from suggestions, making a curated memorial of  that person. Journal entries, to-do lists, photos, and videos would be the most likely to be marked as important data by the AI, and the curator can add titles, dates, and descriptions if they so choose. The people wanting to view another person's data would be subjected to a face scan and would be able to access relevant public profiles (friends, family, celebrities), and would be given an RFID chip to activate the leap motion screen with the chosen data. If a person was wanting to keep to themselves, they could restrict their database to only a few people. The screen would also search all data if given a search term like a date or keyword. A librarian may be able to help with this sheer amount of data sorting.

Prototype

Describe your experience/working prototype: What did you create, how, etc.? What tools and technologies were involved? Include appropriate content and illustration (e.g. a concept video, a video of the device in operation, diagrams, code, etc.)

Materials Used:

- Black and Clear Acrylic

- Wood

- Glue 

- Particle

- LEDs

- RFID Tag Reader

- Wires

- Leap Motion (attempted)

We created an interactive scale model of our digital memorial (see two photos below).  This prototype was made to fit into the current existing Carnegie East Liberty Library.  It is programmed with a RFID tag that will turn lights on gradually based on a person walking through (see code and video below).  Additionally, we made a sample of what the digital memorial would be like using Cassie Alsept (see video of that below).

Link to website prototype source files (see below for video demo): https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yq0isufSz63QX7VjMgHaNO2X49fLt28U

Precedents

Describe theory, concepts, and research you have performed. Describe the prior work, ideas and projects that influenced your design. What work informed this idea.

One thing that we did for this project was to all do a set of case studies, which looked at previous work. Some of these case study "signals" inspired our work- if not by design, by giving us a view of the world's issues with and thoughts on dying and remembrance. I would like to highlight two that inspired specific parts of our final design.

The first case study I would like to reference is the one about how cemeteries are running out of space.  According to Nicole Hanson, a cultural planner who specializes in cemetery urbanism, “We are going to be out of space in five to ten years." This inspired us to look beyond the person's physical body when remembering them or viewing their memorial- we as a society cannot afford to keep burying people.  Additionally, this case study inspired us to plan to build a memorial in an already existing space, so as to minimize the space it takes up as there is already not enough room for the dead.

The last study I would like to reference is the one about internet privacy and google personal information being removed in Europe. We thought this was important to our memorial idea because it reminded us to allow people to take control over their own image and choose how public it is, curate their own content, and choose exactly who they want to have access to their data if they want a semi private or private data memorial.

Process

Describe how you arrived out the outcome. What iterations, refinements, design decisions and changes were made?

We used the experience map exercise to guide our intuitions and thoughts behind how to design this memorial (seen below).  This map helped us decide how we wanted our design ideally to look and how the individual would interact with it.  We changed the plan slightly since the original design of having a cross-shaped design for the rooms with the the screens to view a person's life was not space friendly.  As mentioned above, we wanted our project to take up as little space as possible.  From there, we then brainstormed where this technology would make sense existing and that allowed for the maximum amount of people to view it.  We eventually decided to use libraries as they are already a source of information, exist everywhere, thus conveniently located for most people to go, and already have systems in place for sorting information. 

The next step in our project was to decide which library to start with for implementing it.  We decided to use a local Pittsburgh library, so most of the class would have at least some familiarity with the space.  We decided specifically to use the Carnegie East Liberty Library since it had a floor plan available online.  From there, we edited the existing floor plan to fit in our project idea (see photo below).  From there, we decided to make a 1/32'' model of the space since that would be easily viewable from the table (see third photo below for dimensions and laser-cutting files).

After, we had the files ready, we laser cut them.  We decided to use wood since it's the least expensive material.  We also wanted the kiosk to be made out of acrylic, so it stood out more and looked more sleek.  From there, it was a matter of gluing the model together (see photos below).  We also wanted to paint the wall we were adding a different color, so it stood out more and was easily distinguishable.  We also painted little mini books on the book shelf (see second photo below).  

The final part of the project was adding the RFID and lights.  We went back and forth between whether or not to add it to our project; however, we decided to ultimately add it as it made the model more interactive and demonstrated how and where the RFID reader would be as well as the lights that gradually turn on.  Additionally, Cassie gathered information, photos, videos, and fake journal entries about her live that were made into a website (see video above for demo of that).  This website was supposed to be linked with leap motion, so as to demo the actual room; however, we couldn't get the two to work together.

Open Questions and Challenges

What questions remain to be addressed or questions about memory did this exploration raise for you. What are the things we should pay attention to/discuss in class for future explorations?

One important question that may be left to be answered is how a library may or may not fit in as a place of mourning. If we were to continue further with this project we may decide to take it into another direction, such as a place of records keeping and indexing for certain groups of individuals. This may disconnect it from a personal remembrance that is mainly consumed by friends and family to a more public form of remembrance where unrelated individuals seek out information on these indexed groups. Perhaps after significant world events people in the future would be drawn to this project situated in libraries in order to better understand and/or empathize with affected groups. As well as considering how individuals may interact with the system on a one-time basis, this also forces us to consider how communities might interact with it over a large number of interactions. This approach may do well at encompassing the status-quo of libraries as a place of information and librarians as maintainers and helpful guides for navigating vast amounts of data.

In future related projects, groups may also want to consider how public record keeping as it relates to death could integrate with such a project. Could they be digitally parsed and then be used to automatically index and organize existing profiles for easier access? 

Reflection

Reflect on making this project. What did you learn? What would you do differently? Did you get where you wanted to? If not, why not? What do you need to get there, etc?

The Stories of Our Lives allowed us to encourage conversation on what matters as it relates to our digital legacy. We wanted people to consider what they might put in such an exhibit for the public to potentially see - in other words, how they would write their own digital autobiography.

After the feedback for the crit, we also considered the broader aspects of our project. For example, should it be used to help understand a group of people like oppressed people instead of remembering one individual? In light of injustices in today's society, it might serve as a great way to understand the truth behind the matter and the other side's story.  If used this way, it would also fit more with the goal of a library as a source of information. Additionally, we re-considered whether the library would be a good spot for this since remembering someone also can bring grief to the individual and who wants to grief in a public space and a quiet library no less.

Our main goal with the space was to integrate it into an existing library, East Liberty Carnegie Library. The main consideration here was that space in public libraries can be extremely limited. A secondary consideration was limited public library budgets. Because of this we designed our model to use easily movable temporary walls, as well as simple projection and other readily available technologies (screens, RFID, LeapMotion). We feel that our scale model and drawings did well at representing exactly how the project would fit into and affect a currently existing space.

We were successful in getting RFID, projection, and an example memorial set up for our presentation. The one thing that we were not able to accomplish was using LeapMotion as a mouse controller. Our goal with this was to use an open source python library (PyLeapMouse) as an interface to interact with the example website. Given more time we would surely be able to get this part working.

Attribution and References

Reference any sources or materials used in the documentation or composition.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-december-12-2016-1.3889638/what-happens-when-cemetery-space-runs-out-1.3889836

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bisnow/2017/11/03/urban-cemeteries-running-out-of-space-as-baby-boomers-enter-twilight-years/#164a83d9579c

https://www.itpro.co.uk/data-protection/22378/what-is-googles-right-to-be-forgotten

https://github.com/openleap/PyLeapMouse