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Depository of Memory

Part 2 Project 2011
Scott Licznerski
Edinburgh College of Art | UK
Cyber activity dominates.

People now not only exist in the physical world, but also the virtual. During the Egyptian protests of 2011, the power of the internet was explored by the government as social media sites and networks were closed. At the switch of a button, this ever increasing duality of life was temporarily shut down.

Information can be accessed in an instant and moreover, discarded at the same pace; often uncontrollably. The computer has now become our memory, recording everything that we do. And yet, anything can be snatched through silent technology embedded into a system; an inevitable threat of cyber warfare. Will our natural existence eventually become the inferior power to our digital reality?

With the death of a person, the creator falls and with him all information; nothing physical left to show. No memories.

A dualistic building for the transpired past and yet to happen is visualised; to give The New Town of Edinburgh its former recognition as a free-thinking and progressive centre; a place for the people.

The Depository of Memory forms a relationship with the city. Not solely to a neighbourhood, but the entire urban fabric. Piercing through the formidable sky-line in which the castle and darkened church spires dominate, the proposed tower confronts existing landmarks and identities; a haven for tourists or the life of those that adorn the city?

Mass deposition of memories is envisaged before artistic interpretation and exhibition, turning the ordinary into the extra ordinary; the concealed into the known; the digital into the physical. With an embassy-like status, the chosen information cannot be controlled. Freedom of speech is paramount.

The tower is composed of a series of villages, each one formulated from a space derived from the Parthenon. Combined together, the non-creation of the created is re-created. Each village has a different collection; a different artist; a different memory. With shifting plates of inhabitation, memories come and go with the artists; a planned obsolescence of birth and death, to welcome and say goodbye.

A physical object is created out of the digital. Memories are captured and history preserved.

Scott Licznerski

Tutor(s)
Douglas Cruickshank
2011
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