Remember Me
Through a speculative product and museum-like exhibition, Remember Me critiques how technology has become an irreplaceable extension of ourselves - remembering for us, reminding us, until our own capacity for memory begins to decay.
The Speculative Premise: What happens when we rely on something to remember for us?
The Patch is a speculative memory prosthetic worn on the temple, visually and physically intertwined with the body. Synced to one’s neurological pathways, it stores and retrieves memories, automatically prompting recall or surfacing memories with a tap. Its interactions deliberately mirror behaviours that already exist today: documenting moments through camera rolls, relying on digital reminders, and offloading information we don't want to hold ourselves. The future we imagined is therefore only an extension of the present, extending behaviours we already practice to make visible where our existing relationship with technology could lead.
The Patch as worn and showcased in our short films.
What is truly important? What about us is at risk?
At first, I thought the most compelling consequence of The Patch would be technological failure. If our memories were outsourced, what would happen when the system lost, altered, or withheld them? But as I developed the concept, I realized this question depended on something I hadn't established: why does memory matter in the first place? This shifted my focus. Rather than asking what happens when the technology fails, I began asking what happens when we no longer need to remember for ourselves. Before we could explore the consequences of outsourcing memory, I needed to understand what makes memory valuable to us in the first place. Through our research and discussions, three dimensions became central to the project:
What happens to our instincts?
Memory is embedded in how we learn from experience and navigate the world. What happens when our accumulated experiences are always externalised?
What happens to our connections?
Memory gives relationships continuity. What happens when shared experiences are no longer held and remembered by the people who lived them?
What happens to us?
Our memories give shape to our personal narratives. If our experiences no longer live within us, what happens to the self they helped construct?
“The act of remembering gives continuity and coherence to the personal self.” — Poulos, 2008
This was a quotation which struck me as critically important to the message I was trying to convey. Without our memories, who are we?
From Question to Exhibition
Once I understood what was at stake, the challenge became how to make these consequences tangible. Rather than presenting The Patch simply as a futuristic product, my team constructed an entire world around it through a museum-like exhibition, giving viewers the context to encounter the technology with a sense of curiosity and discovery.
Film became our primary medium for communicating the value of memory. By contrasting everyday life with and without The Patch, it could show how a technology designed for convenience might gradually reshape the way we live - contributing to a corporate, efficiency-driven society that feels uncomfortably familiar. Physical artefacts and exhibition elements provided the surrounding context, allowing us to build out the history and adoption of The Patch and invite viewers to consider its implications through the world we had constructed.
Our exhibition for the Patch, featuring a model of The Patch itself, as well as all of the accompanying videos to illustrate each question we had.
The Intervention
A curated sequence of videos and physical artefacts displayed through an exhibition, examining the consequences of outsourcing memory to technological systems.
My Role
As a key lead in concept development, research, and exhibition design, I worked with a team to develop The Patch and imagine a world shaped by its widespread adoption.