SELF-PORTRAIT ADDITONAL INFORMATION

︎AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL, DIGITAL AND COLLECTIVE MEMORY

The project initially delves into a reflection on the interplay between autobiographical, digital, and collective memory. Specifically, it aims to connect two types of memory: mine and the one formed about me on data servers nestled in the north of Sweden or at the heart of Texas. This exploration seeks to understand the malleability and profoundly imaginary nature of these two types of memories and their role in shaping our collective memories.

"The very mechanism of memory, by taking the path of the imaginary, opens the way to obliteration: dispossessing the present itself, forgetting belongs to the gesture that returns memory to the abyss of the image."  _{(ROPARS-WUILLEUMIER, Marie-Claire. L’image-mémoire, ou l’écriture de l’oubli In: Le Temps d'une pensée: Du montage à l'esthétique plurielle [online]. Saint-Denis: Presses universitaires de Vincennes, 2009 (generated 26 janvier 2024). Available on the Internet: <http://books.openedition.org/puv/137>. ISBN: 978-2-84292-950-3. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/books.puv.137.)}

Our autobiographical memory consists of memories that get altered with each reminiscence and is inherently subjective and biased. Our self-perception is largely built on this memory, dictating our actions. If our memories get distorted with each recollection, does it mean that we are building our present on imaginary scaffolds? What are the implications of a present built on these illusions?

On the other hand, there is the digital memory formed about us. It is built through data, sometimes unknowingly, through cookies and other trackers, as well as traces intentionally left online. The value attributed to this data, often referred to as the "black gold of the 21st century," is based on behaviorist predicate  that data analysis enables prediction and control of behavior—the Holy Grail for marketing and, more worryingly, of certain political movements. This all hinges on the assumption that data is entirely objective and, therefore, reflects a perfect image of reality. But let's reverse the perspective: by being unable to account for non-factual elements, data not only presents gaps but also opens the door to a series of false causal relationships. Isn’t data ultimately only providing an erroneous, purely factual portrait of ourselves? Yet, an increasing number of industries rely on collections of such distorted portraits to sell, engage, monitor, and train. Are our 2.0 societies ultimately existing and evolving in the realm of fiction?

However, these digital and autobiographical memories are the base of our collective memories. Memories that receive attention become so-called strong memories, which ultimately nourish a collective memory. From a neuroscientific perspective, it has been demonstrated that the primary function of autobiographical memory is to anticipate the future. Similarly, collective memory plays a crucial role in shaping our future—or eternal present. National identity, political evolution, and cultural heritage are consequences of our collective memories, to name a few.

Now that our autobiographical memories are preserved intact on digital platforms, we end up forgetting how to forget. The storage of this immense amount of memory inevitably leads to uncomfortable questions: which memories will receive attention? In other words, without the natural process of forgetting, which memories will be actively selected and strengthened to feed our collective memory? Therefore, which memories will be the foundation of our future present, and who will select these memories?


︎TRANSHUMANISM: MIND ULPLOADING AND REINCARNATION

The externalization and preservation of memory constitute the second paradigm that I intend to explore through this installation. Could the data captured by Silicon Valley companies one day serve as archaeological traces of the human species? Alarmist discourses about the capture and use of our data by social media giants obscure projects based on the voluntary donation of data, such as "Eternesia," which aims to establish autobiographical memories as the intangible heritage of humanity. To achieve this, one simply needs to donate selected data on a digital platform. The project, not a hoax, was co-founded by the director of Pasteur and Rive Gauche clinics in Toulouse (now ministerial head of digital health), following an experience that allegedly brought him close to death. The personal motivation behind Eternesia is the desire to "prolong" one's presence on Earth and address the "regrets of gradually forgetting loved ones and knowledge."

Eternesia is just one project among others related to a universal fantasy of eternity and the fear of death or, worse, oblivion. Other projects, such as "Mission Eternity" by the etoy.CORPORATION collective, aim to preserve the digital memory of deceased individuals, or the "Sanctuary" project, intend to leave memories of our civilization on the moon in the form of data contained in sapphire disks for potential future species. Are these preservation projects, allowing the mind to survive the inevitable degradation of our bodies, ultimately desperate attempts to control a future slipping away due to the exponential degradation of our planet?

Transhumanism, a movement advocating for the improvement of human conditions, including life extension through technology, is gaining popularity. Figures like Ray Kurzweil, Google's director of engineering, and Elon Musk openly identify as adherents of transhumanism. In California, those who believe in "mind uploading," a hypothetical technique that could transfer a mind from a brain to a computer after digitization, find allies among cryonics enthusiasts (the preservation of bodies at -200 degrees for future resurrection). Projects like the "Alcor Life Extension Foundation" take special care in preserving the brain in a final effort to safeguard the mind and memory.

It is interesting to note that the discourses surrounding these attempts at technological reincarnation or eternal disembodiment ultimately use vocabulary similar to that of religion, from which many transhumanists seek to distance themselves. Among religions that emphasize rebirth, Buddhism and Hinduism, with their concepts of infinite cycles of rebirth symbolized by Samsara, come to mind. Expanding the scope, Greek mythology features the river Lethe, from which the souls of the dead must drink to forget their memories—a necessary condition for reincarnation. In Chinese mythology, forgetfulness is also essential for rebirth, as souls destined for reincarnation must drink a tea (or soup, according to some texts) prepared by Meng Po, the goddess of forgetfulness, on the Bridge of Forgetfulness that souls cross to reincarnate. Water seems to symbolize forgetfulness in many cultures—a danger to our hard drives and servers where we store our data, devices whose material fragility we tend to overlook.


︎BETWEEN SPECULATION AND REALITY: AN ECONOMY OF MEMORY   

Between digital memory industries and transhumanist startups, we are evolving towards a "memory economy" in a double sense—referring both to industries based on our data and to what drives us to offer them material to thrive on. As the function of collective memory (building the future) demonstrates, memory is power, memory is value—a value that fluctuates depending on its origin, especially if we return to the idea that, without the convenience of forgetting, the abundance of digitized autobiographical memories leads to selecting which memory will become a strong memory, and therefore, a part of the collective memory that will dictate the construction of tomorrow's society. If we conceive memory in this way— as a source of value fluctuating depending on its origin—it is not absurd to draw a parallel between memory and currency.

Speaking of economy, let's talk speculation: what if memory became a currency used in a metaverse? In a world where mind uploading works perfectly (by 2045 according to Ray Kurzweil, Google's CEO), what's the use of having our perishable bodies? Why not simply upload our minds into a simulation or an alternate version of reality—a metaverse? A metaverse literally inhabited by sims (SIM is a term belonging to the field of mind uploading, an abbreviation for "substrate-independent mind"), each with a different currency symbolizing their memory. The value of this memory currency would fluctuate based on the attention given to it, and they could use it to literally build the future society—in other words, to invest in infrastructure, services, and products. Some minds in this metaverse might engage in falsifying memories or creating memory-deep fakes using generative adversarial networks (GANs), a type of artificial intelligence model used for generating new content similar to pre-existing content.

The scenario may seem eccentric, and yet there already exists an economy of memory based on data industries, far from being a marginal phenomenon. Is it really absurd to contemplate this trajectory?


︎ BREAKDOWN OF THE CONTENT ON THE INSTALLATION SCREEN: 

The user is invited to explore the artwork using their eyes, starting from the central circle and moving outward. This journey triggers a series of actions forming a circular narrative. It's the path a user takes when sitting in front of the installation. While multiple people can observe the installation simultaneously, interactivity is triggered only when someone sit on the chair in front if the screen.

Circle A: The center of the screen illustrates the infidelity of autobiographical memory.

Circle B: This circle symbolises the  externalization of autobiographical memory into digital memories, stored on hard drives or servers.

Currency Table: The connection is made between digital and collective memory, using the metaphor of money to symbolize the literal financial value of digital data and the more abstract value of collective memory. The formation of collective memory and gaining power is symbolized by correlating the observation of a memory with monetary gain. This interactive setup echoes the actual functioning of collective memory, where paying attention to certain memories transforms them from "weak memory" to "strong memory" and, consequently, into collective and powerful memory.

Circle C: The idea that memory could serve as currency in a metaverse, used to build its future, is illustrated quite literally with a virtual world where memory currency is used for construction, investment, or purchases. This circl symbolizes the role of memory, both autobiographical and collective, in constructing the future. Memory is power. The loop is closed as this world gives rise to false memories generated by an AI algorithm, mixed with authentic memories at the beginning of the journey. All of this is set in the context of preserving memory for transhumanist purposes, aiming for eternal life. The visual representation refers to infinite life cycles found in Buddhism, placed against an aquatic background symbolizing forgetfulness and the threat of digital memory destruction.

︎BREAKDOWN OF THE CIRCLES

Circle A: The central circle connected to the eye tracker displays a cloud of visual media, including videos, photos, animations, and 3D objects. These are reconstructions of personal memories, mixed with images generated by a GAN. Personal memories are altered visually, echoing the process of autobiographical memory distortion. Images generated by the StyleGAN algorithm, trained on a dataset of personal memories visible on the screen, represent memories associated with avatars in Circle C. The eye tracker follows the user's gaze on the screen (the user positioned on the chair). When the user looks at a memory (real or AI-generated) for more than X seconds, the memory enlarges to fill the entire space of Circle A. Once the memory fills the circle, an opening is created, forming a passage between Circle A and B. The memory is then sucked into Circle B.

Circle B: This circle represents data storage in binary language. When the user looks at Circle A, triggering the enlargement of a memory, it "slides" from Circle A to B through an opening in Circle A. The image of the memory is then converted in real-time into a series of 1s and 0s. This movement symbolizes the externalization of autobiographical memories into digital storage.

Currency Table: The table displays the value of several fictional currencies, each associated with an avatar in Circle C. There is a correlation between the time spent looking at the avatars' memories and the value of these currencies. When the user looks at a memory for more than X time in Circle A, triggering the enlargement, migration to Circle B, conversion to binary language, and activation of the currency table, the observation time is counted in real-time as a timer. Then, the binary code of the memory is pulled from Circle B to Circle C. The observation time of the memory results in an increase in the currency value associated with the avatar.

Circle C: This circle is a 3D virtual world inhabited by the avatars. Messages in this circle invite the avatar whose currency value has increased to invest in specific buildings, services, or products, or to corrupt politicians for example. Attention to that avatar’s memory thus translate into an increase in wealth that translates of course into an increase of power.

The concentric circles are placed on a background of moving water, referencing forgetfulness. Speakers near the screen play looped excerpts from the promotional video of Eternesia, promotional texts from Alcor Life Extension Foundation, speeches by Ray Kurzweil, and other relevant texts on memory. This constant repetition of transhumanist ambitions and thoughts on memory aims to contextualize the screen within the overall reflection. The visual and auditory staging aims to echo the theme of rebirth or eternal life present throughout the project. The choice of circles references Samsara, the cycle of successive rebirths symbolized by the wheel in Buddhism and Hinduism, while the audio excerpts are repeated in a loop to evoke sutras, fragments of wisdom meant to guide mortals.


︎NOTE ON THE TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS USED:

   ︎ MACHINE LEARNING
Choosing to use a StyleGAN network wasn't solely driven by the desire for a precise visual outcome but also made sense conceptually. The way StyleGAN operates echoes how human memory alters and generates false memories. Both StyleGAN and human memory work based on probabilities. Our memory is malleable and distorts through suggestion, misinformation, or adaptation if the information has a sufficient probability of being real. Similarly, images generated by a StyleGAN network's generator have been labeled as sufficiently probable by the discriminator compared to the provided dataset.

   ︎EYE TACKING
Eye tracking serves as a metaphor here: paying attention is granting power. This holds true for collective memories—memories that receive attention enter the realm of strong memory and eventually become part of collective memory. This process is replicated in the installation, where observing a memory, paying attention, triggers its transformation into currency, a clear symbol of power.