Outcome

Intention

Our project pivots around two main ideas. When we were brainstorming we had these two central themes, as well as the brief, in mind.

We wanted to create a dynamic memorial. Typical memorials are quite static as they only show one perspective about a person or situation which typically has many different facets. For example, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC shows one side of Lincoln. We realized the idea: ‘there are many different sides to people, experiences, and things’, needed to be included in our memorial.

Furthermore, we wanted our memorial to address and represent diverse narratives. As time passes, new information is exposed and cultural values shift, sometimes creating disconnects between a memorial's original message and representation and modern-day perceptions. There will always be a need to incorporate perspectives that were either recently developed or previously marginalized. Only in addressing this issue can a memorial reflect and honor the multiple truths and complex histories of national subjects.

These themes set a precedent for what we began to create and heavily influenced our design. They also serve as the ‘why’ for our project. We chose to utilize the technology of the hologram because it seamlessly portrays many different facets of a situation whilst remaining as a whole object. The use of the hologram also allows for changing narratives as our design is easily updatable.

Prototype

For our prototype, we aimed to create a scale model of our memorial with a working hologram as the central focus. The physical apparatus consisted of a cube with openings on all four sides to act as viewports into each of the students four years at Carnegie Mellon. Visible within those viewports is the prism which captures and displays our holographic time capsule. Below this viewing deck is a box that stores all of the technical equipment needed to manage and process the individual student's data. Above the viewports is a smaller box which contains the projection that becomes the hologram in the prism below. For our prototype, we used Rhino as a primary modelling and rendering software, with Photoshop and Illustrator used for secondary touch-ups. For fabricating the model, we used 1/4 inch plywood and 1/8 inch clear acrylic (for the body and prism, respectively). We utilized both laser cutters and analogue fabrication techniques to create and build our structure. The prototype functions as a model at a large enough scale that one may begin to understand their relationship to the memorial. Some technical difficulties prohibited the placement of technical materials in the lower box, but overall the prototype functioned smoothly as a proof of concept.

Precedents

Prior works which have influenced our project include the Funeral Holograms, by AIM Holographics, which is a service providing interactive 3-D renderings of the deceased as a form of memorial. Individuals are able to record a self-eulogy, thus taking control of their digital legacy and how they wish to remembered after passing. Through this holographic medium, people are able to preserve a life-like snapshot of their current selves. It raises questions of how the memory of someone may evolve over time while their digitally-represented self remains frozen in time. In a similar sense, our project sought to utilize a hologram in order to store a snapshot of a person’s life, commemorating their identity and memories at a certain point in their college experience.

Drawing from this critical lens of using technology as an extension of one’s own self, our hologram serves as an immersive visualization of a particular stage in a person’s life, recreating their past experiences and identity. We wanted to investigate further into the idea of extending your digital legacy beyond the scope of a private space but also into the publish sphere. This notion of curating components of your digital self was integrated within our project with visitors selecting their own legacy components to display on the Alumni Wall.

Process

Before arriving at our final outcome, we considered various design iterations all centered around the idea of circling a physical space to view a diverse collection of memories. Our biggest issue was narrowing down the scope of our project and finding a focused subject. Memorializing a location’s history was one of the first options our group explored. We looked at the lost histories of abandoned buildings, as well as cultures which might have been lost due to natural disasters. But, these topics proved challenging to pinpoint specific locations for. Instead we turned our attention inwards towards CMU and how its digital legacy might evolve over time, first focusing on the physical evolution before taking a personalized approach centered on the individual college experience.

In terms of the physical layout of the memorial, we played around with different design elements such as an elevated platform, which unfortunately introduced accessibility issues, as well as speakers, which could provide a multimedia experience. The initial plan was to use benches as checkpoints triggering audio recordings of memories. However, benches proved to hinder the physical flow of the experience as visitors would have to continually alternate between walking and sitting. We considered having light sensors on the floor serve as checkpoints, but from a technical standpoint it would have been difficult to execute due to lighting inconsistencies in the space. In the end, we used distance sensors as they allowed for both detecting the user’s presence and smoothly transitioning between each stage.

Open Questions and Challenges

Prior to the building of our project, we pondered on the idea of how could future memorials become more personal to individuals visiting them? Often times when we walk by certain “traditional” (non-digital, historic, and old) memorials, we feel detached from the experience, event, or person being commemorated. Our project was an approach to considering a way in which individuals could more closely and meaningfully connect with a memorial. By allowing for the commemoration of one’s own personal moments in CMU and ‘past self’, the memorial is no longer a mere object with some foreign meaning; it strongly becomes an experience that one cannot help but engage in at a deeper, personal level.

However, due to the possibility of having their personal digital memories uploaded and become available to the public in the CMU Alumni online page, another question is raised: what if your digital data becomes part of the CMU institution? Generalizing this question to a larger scale, what would it mean to have your (digital) identity publicized by a larger institution or organization? Part of the beauty of and value in having an identity is that parts of it are only known or visible to a few people that are close to you; in some ways, having so much information about yourself available to the public seems to render it as less personal and lose part of its meaning. Although it has become more mainstream for people to share more personal stories publicly, such as struggles with mental disorders and sexual assault cases, could publicizing your four years worth of memories as a CMU undergraduate student hold the same meaning and purpose as sharing stories about personal struggles intended to inspire others and show them that they are not alone in their stressful endeavors?

A huge aspect of one’s digital curation process is the extent to which one is comfortable sharing more private aspects of their lives. But if students are aware of the possibility that their personal memories could become public, how does curation --the ability of or lack thereof-- affect how one would approach building their own digital CMU time capsule? For more reserved individuals, they may put a lot more thought into what they are comfortable sharing. Those who care a lot about how they are seen in media may find ways to tweak their digital files (images, videos, etc.) to an extent that might not be the most representative of their true selves at that time and then put those into their capsules. This memorial, therefore, poses the question of how truthful can the memories being memorialized actually be and how truthful are they actually? How, then, would this memorial differ from current social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter?

Moreover, how does the deleting feature of this memorial experience affect how one approaches the curation process? Knowing that they can delete whatever image they have later on might prompt people to use the app for the memorial almost as a sort of digital “dump,” whereby the curation process is almost essentially non-existent and no thought or reflection occurs. Because of how much information we are able to store digitally, we may sometimes take for granted what we have, as we can easily and quickly access it. As a result, we accumulate a lot of unnecessary digital files that no longer hold any valuable meaning to us or no longer serve their purpose. It is therefore relevant now and in the future to think more critically about how having so much data that is readily accessible can affect your decisions to keep and memorialize a certain experience stored digitally. 

Reflection

We initially approached the project in a very practical means by thinking more about what physical object(s) we could realistically build. Instead, what we would do differently is start with the bigger ideas, issues, and questions we want to raise and explore, and then decide how to physically and digitally manifest, or show, them. Deciding to build a hologram memorial and then trying to figure out what issues and questions to tie it to was not only a more difficult approach, but it also made it feel like we were trying to forcefully connect concepts rather than following a natural development of ideas.

Another aspect of our project that we could approach differently is the more meaningful incorporation and thoughtful intent on the location and space in which our memorial would be placed. Making technological or digital interactions more intuitive by creating features and with thoughtful design can invite people to behave and act in the way that that particular digital object or space intends to provoke. In other words, giving more thought into where the memorial would be located and how its design could intuitively let people know how to interact with them could have allowed for the project to be more fully developed. 

Arduino Code

Processing Code

Attribution and References

- https://future.ncpc.gov/

- http://www.legacy.com/news/culture-and-trends/article/attend-your-own-funeral-as-a-hologram

- https://processing.org/