Distorted Memories
Year of Creation:
2025
Media:
Custom Software, Raspberry Pi, Monitor, Ultrasonic Proximity Sensor, Video Playback
Dimensions:
Variable
Interaction Type:
Proximity-Responsive
Duration:
Looping / Ongoing
Description:
A looping video of childhood memories plays on a monitor, but the clarity of the image shifts according to the viewer’s distance. An ultrasonic sensor measures proximity: the closer one approaches, the more the video pixelates, until details dissolve into digital noise. The piece reflects on the fragile, reconstructive nature of memory. Nostalgia allows us to perceive past events as vivid from afar, but when we reach for detail, the memory degrades—its surface breaking apart in the very act of recall. Distorted Memories turns the mechanics of digital distortion into a metaphor for how human memory is constantly reassembled, altered, and destabilized in real time.
Core Question:
What happens to memory when every act of recall distorts the story we tell ourselves?
Loop Analysis
Structure:
Proximity-Based Perceptual Loop
Definition:
A feedback system where distance alters the fidelity of representation, mirroring the instability of memory.
Leverage Point:
Awareness that closeness does not equal clarity—intimacy with the past fragments its image.
Inputs / Outputs:
Viewer proximity → ultrasonic sensor data → real-time pixelation of memory video → altered perception of memory clarity
Effect:
Nostalgia, dissonance, and recognition of memory’s instability
Ethical Valence:
Reflective and revealing—offers a poetic critique of how memory resists permanence
Design Note:
Pixelation functions as metaphor, using digital degradation to illuminate the reconstructive nature of remembering.
