Memory Shelf

The Memory Shelf recognises objects through their weight.  A platform at one end weighs placed objects and allows people to add audio descriptions through a recording function.  When the weight is triggered again in the future, the audio replays.

Designed as a working model, the shelf has recording and audio listening capability, and how these functions were used by visitors during the exhibition provides anecdotes for explaining the concept further.  The impreciseness of identifying objects by weight often triggered the wrong memory but proved just as delightful as reliving the correct memory, if not more so.  The unexpectedness of hearing the wrong memory became valuable in developing proposals for memory support that consider unexpected remembering.  The interface of the shelf affords unexpected memory discovery: for pure memory indulgence people can simply apply pressure with their hand and scroll through all the weights to hear associated audio memories.

Completed as a Research Associates project at the RCA HHC, with research partners Hewlett-Packard.