Artificial Memory as a Mazy Shell
What if remembering were something we practiced rather than simply retrieved?
Interactive installation, embodied writing instruments, spatial audio, programmable light, and digital visualization (2026)
Artificial Memory as a Mazy Shell is an experimental new-media installation developed for use within my domestic environment. It explores how personally meaningful knowledge can be organized, experienced, revisited, and cultivated through physical interaction.
The system centers on six illuminated towers that form a tangible, spatial memory environment. A collection of embodied writing instruments allows me to compose and revisit knowledge through activities such as walking, drumming, cycling, and gesturing, translating bodily movements into written language through Morse code and Braille. Spatial audio, programmable lighting, and digital visualization provide additional ways of encountering and reflecting on the knowledge held within the system.
Created through autobiographical research-through-design, the project brings together my interests in art, music, memory, and human-computer interaction. Inspired by commonplace books and historical techniques of spatial memory, it investigates how interactive technology might encourage sustained relationships with meaningful information rather than simply facilitating its storage and retrieval.
The Mazy Shell ultimately considers remembering as an ongoing, embodied practice through which knowledge and personal meaning can be cultivated.
Further Reading
This project was developed through my doctoral research in Human-Centered Computing at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). The full dissertation provides a detailed account of the artistic process, technical development, and theoretical foundations of the Mazy Shell System.