Memoryplace
Seema Nisar
Memoryplace is a web and mobile platform for exploring and storing memories, and turning them into visual, immersive, and transformative experiences. It places emphasis on the process of memory recall and engages users in recalling memories using a specific method of memory recall devised by a Roman rhetorician named Quintilian. The method calls for the imagining of a place of the largest possible extent divided into many compartments, such as a house divided into many rooms. Whenever a situation, event, or experience needs to be remembered, attaching a symbol or object to represent the memory and placing it inside one of the imagined rooms will help one to recall the memory at a later date by recalling the symbol or object. Through the unconstrained nature of digital environment, Memoryplace is able to serve as a visual conduit for Quintilian’s mnemonic device. Memories are not experienced in the same way when they are mentally visited as they are when they are written and read about, heard, or seen in photographs and videos. No one memory stands alone either, or is necessarily remembered wholly. By allowing users to edit pre-created memories at any time, the platform grants them the ability to add details to memories in whatever nonlinear manner they are recalled. In this way, the aim of Memoryplace is to provide a tool that facilitates a more immersive visitation of one’s memories and can be improved upon at any time.