M E M O R Y C A P S U L E
If we could send messages to the future, what would your message be?
Memory Capsule is an ongoing project which consists of digitally recording messages to be heard by future generations a hundred or two hundred years from now. Would these messages help us better understand our place? Could we better understand our identity? Is it possible to have a dialogue with future generations?
This is a metaphorical bottle with messages inside, a space conceived for reflection, it is an instrument through which we can clarify as society some of our recurrent questions: Who are we? What are existence and time? How can we leave our trace in life?. Memory Capsule invites community participation through a process in which individual participants are invited to leave their own personal messages through recorded video and audio technology. The project is conceived as a digital “container of memories” preserving people ́s expressions, thoughts, perceptions, feelings about life, place, and identity.
Memory Capsule is a project by Mexican artist César Damián.
Memory Capsule was born as an explorative exercise at Oxygen Art Centre in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada; during the artist residence program. This is aN ONGOING project.
People in Nelson, B.C. participated enthusiastically in this art experiment by leaving messages for people in the future. They expressed their ideas and thoughts while they were video/audio recorded.
Memory Capsule aims to generate a series of art installations intending to trigger social / community dialogue and interaction within communities. For instance, here is a tent used as an allegory of a receptacle, which serves as shelter, a refuge, a sanctuary emulating and intimate space where one can honestly express one’s deepest feelings and thoughts.
Once people in the community have left their messages, a flag art installation was created by using the message senders portraits. Flags freely waving under the sky as a sign and symbol of someone’s subtile yet strong presence.
The flags meaning: We have been here,
this is our message, this is our trace.
PROCESS
My work seeks the process as a priority, in which observation, experimentation and the search for audience participation is fundamental.
Some installations were originally proposed for near Laskeside Rotary Par in Nelson, B.C. Unfortunately, after some attempts, it was not possible to have it there due to an expensive liability insurance, City Hall and Province authorizations. So the installations in the public space were created in Mexico.
Exploration in the study / Canada
Exploration on the water / Mexico
Exploration with sound
This sound piece was exhibited and made together with the participation of the community of Nelson, British Columbia, Canada.
Periphoneum is used to broadcast, through loudspeakers, a message or notice of any kind. In ancient times, the periphoneum already existed in the figure of the town crier, a person who went through the cities loudly communicating messages to the population. Today it is used in Mexico to spread massive events, messages in an advertising system and even political announcements. In this exercise periphoneum was used to disseminate messages to the future of some of participants, in a rural community of Guapamacátaro, in Michoacán, Mexico, where I had the opportunity to spread the project.
