Boo Hoo
November 2018 - April 2019
This project reveals aspects of the relationship between technology and humanity, which have a profound impact on our contemporary culture. Since the 20th century, technology has played a pivotal role in our society, and with the development of technology, the ways that memories exist and are preserved has experienced a great revolution. With the internet and smartphones, people have more accessibility of their memories compared to other generations. However with all the convenience, these current methods of capturing memories lacks ritual and sacredness, and I have personally found the meaning of memories has been depreciated.
My project BooHoo is a film installation that hosts a memory memorial using technology in order to discover a new relationship between technology and human memories. Based on my personal memories, I used crying as a ritual, and tears as the tribute to the memory memorial. The installation is a crying machine that can “cry” when it detected scenes that are similar to the memories I have programmed into it. When a similarity between the existing memories and the new stimulus appears higher than 60%, the machine will respond by crying, as an expression of memorialising my memories. The tears as the tribute in this memory memorial are used to raise a goldfish, based on the famous rumour that goldfish can only remember seven seconds of life. I made a film with my memories from my human perspective; by involving my precious personal memories and displaying this memory ritual hosted by technology, this project created an immersive environment for the audience, which can allow them to think of themselves in this way, and open the conversation of other possibilities of how technology has impacted aspects of humanity.
tears collection