Joe Kirk's Final Year blog

Presntation notes, to condence to a list

2008-06-03T01:12:00.000-07:00

Presentation notes

When I first started generating ideas they were mostly technology based. It was as if I was as if I was trying to find the solution to a concept before I have even grasps a concept. This had set be behind a bit but I was able to pinpoint a possible concept for ideas out of the burst shot idea. In this idea I wanted to use burst shooting on a camera to explore how taking out frame of a made up video would affect how the viewer perceives it as a memory. I was told to broaden my horizons so I script that idea all together and had a blank canvas for ideas which would be based around memory.

From here I began to research heavily into the science behind what makes memory work. I looked into the autonomy of the brain, how each part had a different job. I discovered the models of memory, sensory memory an impulse memory which happens automatically and stays with us for a very short amount of time, the short term memory which is a place where current information is stored for things that are happening now, this information is then sent to the long term memory if it is needed to be recalled at a later date. For example if someone tells you a telephone number this would be held in the short-term memory. Repetition or revision of the number will aid its success in being transferred into the long-term memory. We must also remember that long term memory also decays and without revision information may be lost.

My research also looked into how emotions affect memory and I discovered that at heightened levels of emotion we are more likely to lock event into out memory at the expense of events that might have happened hours or minutes before. As I delved deeper into my research I started to become aware of super memory, a way of remembering huge amounts of information to be recalled at anytime. This is commonly known as photographic memory. I soon became aware of the opposite end of this where people would forget things, in the most extreme case a British man could only remember that last 20 seconds. I learnt of his distress, this feeling of waking up all the time. His notebooks constant scribbles of past evens, as he believes he had just awoken the previous events were disregarded and he scribbled them out.

From here I decided to create a series of image which looked at ways I could simple represent memory. These resulted in negative film, digital SD and Polaroid’s. This is where the title and idea came from my project, The Polaroid was an icon on being able to capture and see an image almost instantly. This is obviously void now due to digital cameras but when this Polaroid was 'in fashion' it was a big thing, and has become a cult icon.

At first I was interested in the sensory memory and its difference in visual and audio times before they decayed. There was a relationship between the two and I thought as a concept before even looking into technologies this was where I was going to take the project.
(*show storyboard one*)
At this time I began to open the project back up after consisting it down into just research. I produced a small series of images in which audio would be illustrated above. I named this audio lines. The image contained a consist subject of the sky, this was partly to show an idea of repetition something previously explore in the research then information is converted into the long term memory, as repetition helps this. Essentially audio is recorded for 4 seconds (the maximum time for sound to decay in the sensory memory) this is then spanned across the photograph or illustration. I considered do this part in processing as I wanted to apply some kind of aesthetic on the waveform, rather than just the waveforms we know.

I also created some work using typeface as a aid of showing a fact that we can only remember 7 blocks of information before our memory is exhausted (short term memory)

At this point I began to watch films about memory such as.

Copy Shop
Fight Club
Gattaca
La Jetee
Minority Report
The Island
Unknown White Male
50 First Dates
Eternal Sunshine

While watching these I found a link with identity and memory. This interested me greatly as I began to understand that we are who we are based on our experience of the past drawn from out memory. Without out memory who are we? The channel four documentary "Unknown White Male" was an inspiration at this point. It outlined some of the questions I had been asking myself when reviewing such films as Gattaca. The documentary explored how a man had to rebuild his life after wakening up on a subway train with no memories to recall on a personal level. The film explained how memory had 3 different types and that the part which stores memories on a personal memory had been damaged.

At this point my project took a big turn, and I decided I would like to keep exploring this idea of memory failure rather than to explore the relationships between audio and visual in sensory memory. Being inspired again by the film momento I began looking into memory disorders and illnesses. Amnesia refers to any memory problem. I explored different types of amnesia in my research. I then came across another documentary about a man called Clive wearing who suffered from multiple types of amnesia. He was only able to remember in 20 second blocks. I then ready parts of his wife’s book to try to understand more about the condition but it was really just what was in the documentary but it was form here eyes so it explained how she lives with a man who can only remember 20 seconds.

It was at this point I decided I wanted to explore ways of visually showing ideas of memory loss. I started to look at short-term memory and long-term memory as two separate things, and I already knew that memory loss was the cause of these two things not working together. To explain Clive Wearings problem he was unable to retrieve information from his long term memory, every so often though he would be able to recall events, but he would say them without realizing, this gave some evidence that memory was being sent from the short term memory into the long term memory but that there was a communication problem when the long term was needed to be recalled

I began by filming some lofi videos and quickly found a link between image compression and memory. I had an idea that I would record different qualities of video and use these to show were memory was being lost. I comprised a route that I would take to record certain events which might exploit the limitations of lofi video to create a larger contrast against HD video. Essentially my idea was that the movie be shot in HD and then lofi video edited as overlays to show the effects of compression, mimicking the loss of memory about a certain subject in the scene.
(*show route story board*)

It was here that I began to explore compression in video, as I began to compress video I noticed artifacts appear which then lead me onto wanted to look into the glitch. Having previously read iImans dissertation when writing my own dissertation I already had a slight interest into the style. I first began glitching video by manipulating key frames, this was tried on a number of video's but I then started to manipulate images.
(*show aesthetics storyboard*)

(*show website experiments*)

I found a link in how I was creating some of the glitched, I was almost mimicking human memory, in the way that the data is passed from one place to the other but cannot be ready correctly. I looked back at the camera as being the eye of the memory, so when an image is recorded that is as marshal McLuhan said, just an extension of our own human eye. The data when stored on the computer is then in the "short term memory" and I then take the data and open it in defiant environments on the computer. This is my interpretation of the memories journey at tiring to be stored in the long term memory. The data is corrupted, and the result is the effect of amnesia onto the image.

I decided not to shoot video due to a time constrain, but another reason for using photography is that it works much like memory, in terms of it being described as block, draws, compartments. Each photograph would be a 'block'

(*show process board*)
(*show concept board*)

Deciding that I wanted to use photography I wanted to choose a style which aided the project, so I wanted to use a style which reflected back on my previous idea of sensory memory. The idea of capturing small pockets of time in which I did not affect shooting. I used a style of documentary photography called street photography, which is less about capturing important events and more about capturing everyday life. This mean I had to roam the street with my camera looking for these movements. Talk about who inspires me
(*show street photography on blog*)

I found a link with an artist saying that glitch art was like a digital way to photograph, not it a literal since but in that way that you wait around ready, waiting for the moments to happen in the environment, this of cause meaning the computer environment and not the real world.

Once I had selected the image they were then forced to glitch to show my concept. This was done 100's and on anew occasions 1000 times to find an image which would have an aesthetic to show this. For example I looked for lost or moved blocks of pixel data which would cover a characters face or a part of the image I thought neccisery. I then wanted a way of presenting these images. The Polaroid, going right back to the start of the project when I took some photos of what I thought showed memory was a Polaroid. This would close the image off nicely, showing its change in coming off the computer (short term memory) and into the Long Term Memory world.

The glitch changed once the aesthetics of the Polaroid’s had its way. They seemed to become more human in a way, the edges of the pixel blocks burred and some colours smudged. I liked this as it took away some of the idea of glitch being what I see as a digital thing.

(*show videos*)
Explain about being experiments; show the gradual degrationation of the data

(*show 3 min video*)
Exhibition video

(*show final piece*)
*as they look*

explain that I chose the images due to having a relationship with the other shots sometimes, example *point at total glitch* and saying this contests with the almost photographic *old lady*. Then explain why some never got into the chosen 12. Due to blurred, badly composed, other peoples photography (before I managed to take my own)

What would you do to the project, personal analyze.

There is no narrative so adding narrative to the create a story, give an example of a breakdown of communication in the story shown through the Polaroid’s, start being normal then changing the memory to glitch.

Polaroid Outcomes

2008-05-31T08:17:00.000-07:00

These are my chosen 12 images for the exhibition

stack of polaroids

2008-05-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

street image glitch

2008-05-30T14:38:00.000-07:00

These are some of the results i have been getting from forcing glitchs onto the streetphotographs. These are mostly done via chaning the hexicode structer of the file, but others are from taking the files into differant versions of word, and rendering them back out.

The images are chosen for their aesthic quality at showing amnisia, as an example is the file is corrupted in such a way that a face is missing, I will consider this as an image to shoot with the polaroid SX-70 or use in my video experimentation peice.

Street Shots part ii

2008-05-30T05:36:00.000-07:00

I haven't had time to post this yet but they were taken last week, off 2 rolls of HP5+ in my FM2 with a 50mm lens. The shutter was kept at about 1/500th and i used aperture control to control the light. On of the rolls was overdeveloped and so there is too much shadow information on the negatives.

analogue output for show

2008-04-28T06:16:00.000-07:00

After my review taking to Jen and Rob I have decided to produce a series of analogue photography to be based around the video pieces which i have been working on. These are 16 Polaroids which will capture the digital data via a large projector to fill the viewfinder. These will be places in the gallery space at a later data. This idea flow alongside my concept perfectly, analogue > digital > analogue. Much like LTM > STM > LTm the way my work is bouncing around applications mymicing memory, the input / output processes are also doing the same. I have just read a artical from http://beflix.com/gop.html

This was a very interesting read which talks about comparing digital art with analogue, also explains a bit about glitch art, which is incorporated within my work.

"The glitch artist (for want
of a better phrase) thus assumes a role akin to that of a photographer,
exploring the environment, waiting for interesting events to happen, and
capturing the image before it disappears."

I really liked the way the process is compared to being like that of a photographer. In a way i'm using photography in its analogue format then processing the image digitally similarly like that of a photographer and then producing an analogue output again using photographic ideals.

Maybe this is the new new digital photography, an advancement of just using electrodes to produce images via a sensor, but to actually be shooting the electrodes themselves working within the computer.

3rd video expierment (fixed)

2008-04-23T20:48:00.000-07:00

Here is the video which i edited in preimer as i inteded it to look. The glitches were alot quicker and less jumbled than the glitch of a glitch video. This gives the viewer more time to take in the photography, rather than the image just suddenly jumping into a huge big mess of colours. Although i like this effect at the end :D

I wanted to show the video in such a way that it shows the imaged before the memory, then parts of the photograph glitch, this is to show the areas of the brain, breaking down in comunication with each other and not the right parts of the data being understood, this would be classed as lite amniesa as information is still recoginzed.

As the video advanced i want the memories to break down so much that the video becomes understandable, this should express the idea of total breakdown. Seams simple enough and its applying a rather complex concept with a basic solution of how to show it. I can only help that further experiments and developments strenghten this idea of a borken memory.

Piece by Piece

2008-04-23T20:39:00.000-07:00

I decided to try control the glitch effect more, as i have been having problems with data being too unstable when changing back to there native applications, for exaple after saving them as jpeg, rendering the jpeg causes strange (but nice) results to the video output (more artifacts and glitch).

This is just a quite example of how i can control the aesthetics simply by using multiple edited imaged to create a mixed piece.

3rd video expierment

2008-04-23T20:04:00.000-07:00

This is my third experiment on a photograph taken in leads outside a tent which was pro scienctology. The photograph is shot in street style and tries to capture a moement which tells a small story but which i (the photographer) am not a part of. This is the memory, of people conversing about an unknown matter. Passers by forget the faces.

This piece was composed using over 100 selected stills from a huge amount of hex edited images. These were then sorted into catogries based on there visual representation. For example Bottom folder stored all the imaged where only the bottom was visible, top-top middle-middle ect ect. This allowed me to find which image style i wanted when editing. I tried to edit the video to show the slow decay of the data as the piece progressed, although i think i failed so far, back to the drawing board.

Its hard to show certains areas missing because the views need to be told what was once there before they understand what is missing, its like trying to do a spot the differance with only one half of the images !!

What i found quite intresting was that the video glitched itself after i rendered the premier project using windows media video MP4v3 codec. When i watched the video back there was artifacts and further glitching which i never edited into the video but are very visable. It seams like its going to be hard to create a directed piece of work that stays 100% true to my vision as the glitches re-occur due to images being unstable after transporting the data around.

Audio glitching and 2nd video piece

2008-04-22T07:39:00.000-07:00

This is my second video composition this time applying audio taken from the image itself.

The artifact glitching is caused by hex editing, the textured scan and wave lines are created by the orignal image and saving them back out after opening it in audio editing applications. The whole thing is staged in premier, and is all scripted.

video composition 1

2008-04-21T14:11:00.000-07:00

jpeg check with colour now.

2008-04-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

I did the same thing but used the imaged saved out from the hex editor rather than the images saved when trying to preserve the image using print screen. What I presumed was correct that print screen will just copy the data so when i pasted it back into photoshop the data was still unstable and very much the same as before.

I used a differant codec and was able to show the colour. Whats funny is that i used black and white photographic, and glitching the image ass a whole range of RGB colours to the image.

Video Mac problems

2008-04-21T11:32:00.000-07:00

I took my photograph and changed the data of the .jpeg in a hex editing program, nothing new in my work.

I then tried to capture the image using print screen function, this was then pasted into photoshop and then saved out as a sepreate .jpeg (this was to try preserve the format as opening the "unstable" hex edited .jpeg in differant environments causes a change in how that data is read and thus results are varied)

I then imported these newly saved imaged into video man, and rendered them as a slide show at 1fps using a windows media codec.

When this is views via windows media classic, there is colour information but this strange effect occurs which glitches the images even more. Its as if the codec was unable to read the data and has imposed its own glitch, encoding is a environment I never thought to use!

Colour information has been lost since youtube processing which is anoying cos there was some nice RBG banding across the images.

I am really unsure why this has happened, as I tried to preserve the image as via print screen function. Print screen on Windows must just copy out that data, and when I was pasting it back into photoshop and saving as .jpeg it must just have transported that glitch.

Leeds Street Photography

2008-04-21T05:25:00.000-07:00

OK for my work I needed some of my own material to work from (was getting sick of using other peoples), as photography was the sort of back bone of the work I wanted to do an interesting, hard and topical style, street photography. Essentially documenting what goes on in the "street" (not as a subject).

I want small moments of untold stories to be the framework of my work before I effect the image with my concept aesthetics. It's these small everyday happenings which our brains choose to forget due to our minds thinking about something which to the individual is more important. After only maybe 15 seconds things are removed from the short term (working memory) to allow room for new memories.

I shot 2 rolls in the streets of Leeds around the route which I was going to use as a basis for a video piece but the work has changed now due to time constrains. Although I feel the idea of creating stills is so much better.

I shot on Kodak Tri-X 400 and the other roll was on HP5+ 400. I used my FM2 Nikon camera and a 50mm lens which was at f1.8 when it was wide open, so it was good for the street as sometimes lighting can become quite dark, eg in the train station i had to shoot at 1/30th wide open which was hard with the SLR mirror shaking my hand as i fired. I managed to develope the rolls in Kodak T Max and have them all scanned with the CoolScan V by the early hours of Monday morning.

Now that I have a few of my own images around the subject matter I wanted, I am now able to progress with experimenting further with the aesthetics of the images.

My tutor Tom said that when someone is able to look at the still images and understand that it is a memory, thats when I have it nailed on the head so to speak, but at the moment this seams a mammoth task. How the hell do you make something look like a memory without doing the cliché, vignette the hell out of it and add a sepia tone? We get stuck with this impression a from an early age, that when we visualize a memory we are looking at a old sepia photograph or a image which has bend marks, fading and tares. Maybe this is something which I might have to consider when producing my work.

Anyway here are a few of the image I will be considering to use as a final piece or at the very least my experiments will be on these images.

ROM Check Fail

2008-04-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

I found a really intresting game which has been designed using glitch aesthetics as a basis for the gameplay. Using a mix from ROM emulation from the old skool gaming systems.

Recipe for ROM CHECK FAIL
Carefully place a dozen arcade classics in a large mixing bowl. Add a dash of awesomesauce, cover the bowl, and allow the ingredients to ferment over three weeks. Uncover in a well ventilated area, then mash until loud and glitchy. Serve over the internet.
Dowload it here

Transporting the data part i

2008-04-15T15:01:00.000-07:00

PhotoShop allows you to save images without headers, .RAW
this is the format which allows the data to be transported from one application to another (long term back into the short term) more easily. More testing needs to be done but I have got this working with Sony SoundForge, i am yet unable to get any image data into SoundBooth by adobe to see what the outcome of that is like.

The images are grayscale, due to the gray scale image being used for all of my experiments although i would like to see how the effects and filters of audio effects the colours of returned image

make something still, move!

2008-04-15T08:26:00.000-07:00

I have give the file format experiments a rest, and I tought how I could get a still image to act like video.

If you encode a single image as video the artifacts are minimal just due to the compression, as there is only one frame to work off the key frame is the single image. This means that my method for producing codec keyframe gliches is void.

The simple way is to record the photography, thus turning it into video!

I did this using my creative web cam, but the codec used to render the video is colour converted and is incompatible with the samplegrabber filter used to create keyframe glitch aesthetics. Its just easier to render the file out as a divx or wmv, this way ffdraw can be used, which i find works well. Also a 30sec video was about 200megs so it helps keep filesizes down as well :)

A matter of change

2008-04-15T07:29:00.000-07:00

At the movement I'm having trouble converting files so that they can be read by other applications (the whole point of the concept), so I need to learn how to add headers to the files when they are opened in audio editing apps, this should allow me to then use the image data as raw audio data, hopefully adding effects and saving them back out as bmp or jpeg should change the pixels.

I need to learn to stick with BMP for now was jpeg is more volatile and .PSD is just a pain in the ass, I am yet to succeed in forcing a glitch on this format and re-openeing it in its native application.

still no replys from the databenders, looks like im doing this alone.

beflix glitch - data visualization

2008-03-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

This is taken from http://beflix.com/visualization.html

"Analogue Glitches
These we agree about, to a lesser or greater extent.
Here are three, in decreasing order of general consensus.

1. Electrical spike.
2. Chemical disturbance (eg. in brain).
3. Discontinuity of time or space (eg. black hole)."

This is something i would like to explore to which would cause a glitch in an analog format as i have been using digital media so far.

The site also contains a flow of data diagram which is useful to see the workflow involed in glitch aesthetics.

sometimes its just better to see things in motion :)

2008-03-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

pokémon's glitch city
shame it has lost that gameboy green tint :[

this will add some colour to your life, its the glitch city from one of the new pokémon games, leaf green.

Here is a nicer video of some of glitch city which i feel looks alot most aestheticly better than the pevious two videos.

Storyboard 1 - Google Maps [stage1]

2008-03-05T13:05:00.000-08:00

Took me hours to paste together lots of smaller hi detailed images from google maps. there were a total of about 200 layers this will for the basis of one of my storyboards. this is the 1st stage and information will be added tomorrow, in form of txt and images.

I made the image black and white in areas of the city which are not close or part of the route taken. When the image was in full colour it was hard to understand the route taken, the remaining route was bumped in saturation just to draw the veiwer into the path more.

the image is around 7000pixels by 5000pixels and once printed on A2 board the detail should prove quite intresting, hopefully you can see all the ears from bird eye of view clearly so the annotions will have a visual aid.

A problem with glitch

2008-03-04T08:27:00.000-08:00

A slice out of a blog from http://animalswithinanimals.com/stallio/2005/05/application-sensitive-image-bending.html

A powerful reminder of one of the core concepts of databending: you never really working directly with data; you work with the data as interpreted by the editing environment you use to access that data. there is at least one built-in layer of abstraction present at all times. with image-bending, you could say that the "real" bending happens not when you edit the data, but when that data is reinterpreted back into its original format. the same exact file will bend differently when opened in different applications on the same computer/OS, and will also look different when viewed in the same application but on a different computer/OS.

This raises some fundamental questions: just how important is the "computer" part of the equation? will two machines running the same OS and application versions interpret a file in the same way? or do hardware variations, etc factor in? could it be that a bent volatile file will render differently on every computer you open it in? or does OS even factor in at all?

Glitch Asthetics

2008-03-03T03:22:00.000-08:00

Whilst looking into the asthetics of image compression I have discovered that glitch art has a similar asthetic appeal and I would like to research this more. There are differant forms of glitch art all are explained in my tutors dissertation titled "Glitch Aesthetics" written in 2004 by Iman Moradi.

Glitching means to error or malfunction which i think suits my ideas behind showing memory loss (amnisea).

The asthetics are something which I like to further explore in my work. The style suits my idea better than just image compression. With some cases of amnisea experiments have shown that memories are stored in their patients LTM (long term memory) but the act of retrival into their short term memory fails them.

With my ideas on image compression, this is distorying and/or removing the data, where as glitching is taking the information and causing errors, much like the erroring affect when a patient tries to retreave a memory stored within there LTM.

Glitchs are most likely to occur when data is changing from one area to another, much like how memories move around the memory model. Glitch aesthetics focus on imprefections, corruption and fragmentation. All these words can directly relate to memory problems.

Within my tutors dissertation he says that "conveyance of meaning" is a less explored characteristic of glitching, although this was written 4 years ago now, i feel that i can explore this area by using my concept as a baseline from which my work can grow around.

Examples of glitch art

taken from http://www.da-n.org/?p=23

taken from http://beflix.com/

taken from http://popmodernism.org/appropirate/?c=4

taken from http://www.typedown.com/galleries/gallery-neuordnung-image-sourcecode-manipulations-2002/

taken from http://createdigitalmotion.com/2007/02/19/glitch-synthetic-and-real-free-vintage-fairlight-vj-clips-glitch-in-jitter/

taken from http://infosthetics.com/archives/2005/03/glitch_art_1.html

http://decode.cc/
http://artcontext.org/
http://www.thesexappealoferror.com/
http://www.artcontext.org/decoderBling/docs/ANEMICodeCINEMA.html
http://davidwilsonmcleishtheory.blogspot.com/2005/10/allegorizing-glitch.html

Memory camera implated into a mouse by japanese researchers

2008-02-23T13:53:00.000-08:00

http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKT7718020080131

Working with researchers at Kinki University, Ohta implanted the special semiconductor camera inside the hippocampus of the mouse's brain, designing the devise so that a screen showed blue light whenever the camera captured memory being recorded by the brain.

The researchers injected the mouse with a substance that lights up whenever there is brain activity. The camera then captures that light and the visuals come up on a screen.

What is Compression?

2008-02-19T10:49:00.000-08:00

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_compression

Image compression is the application of Data compression on digital images. In effect, the objective is to reduce redundancy of the image data in order to be able to store or transmit data in an efficient form.
A chart showing the relative quality of various jpg settings and also compares saving a file as a jpg normally and using a "save for web" technique
A chart showing the relative quality of various jpg settings and also compares saving a file as a jpg normally and using a "save for web" technique

Image compression can be lossy or lossless. Lossless compression is sometimes preferred for artificial images such as technical drawings, icons or comics. This is because lossy compression methods, especially when used at low bit rates, introduce compression artifacts. Lossless compression methods may also be preferred for high value content, such as medical imagery or image scans made for archival purposes. Lossy methods are especially suitable for natural images such as photos in applications where minor (sometimes imperceptible) loss of fidelity is acceptable to achieve a substantial reduction in bit rate.

Methods for lossless image compression are:

* Run-length encoding – used as default method in PCX and as one of possible in BMP, TGA, TIFF
* Entropy coding
* Adaptive dictionary algorithms such as LZW – used in GIF and TIFF
* Deflation – used in PNG, MNG and TIFF

Methods for lossy compression:

* Reducing the color space to the most common colors in the image. The selected colors are specified in the color palette in the header of the compressed image. Each pixel just references the index of a color in the color palette. This method can be combined with dithering to avoid posterization.
* Chroma subsampling. This takes advantage of the fact that the eye perceives brightness more sharply than color, by dropping half or more of the chrominance information in the image.
* Transform coding. This is the most commonly used method. A Fourier-related transform such as DCT or the wavelet transform are applied, followed by quantization and entropy coding.
* Fractal compression.

The best image quality at a given bit-rate (or compression rate) is the main goal of image compression. However, there are other important properties of image compression schemes

Google Video of MIT lecture about the mathmatics of compression to understand how it works.

Although i dont understand the mathermatics too well, i understand that the most image compression split the image into smaller sections then looks for matching pixels so that pixels similar in colour to the next pixel become the same colour to keep the byte's low, using a set series of vectors.

The whole process is very mathermatical and code orientated. There are multiple compression methords for images, audio and video(motion). Examples being, gif,jpg,png,tiff,mpg1,mpg2,mpg4 ect ect

Here is another google lecture video which focus's more on the Lossy Image Compression technique. It explains again about the mathermatics of compression but it is more understandble as it isn't as maths heavy as the other lecture.

The downside of compression, if the goal is to achive the raw image as a compresion, is that 'compression artifacts' occur after compression. The results increase due to the agressiveness of compression. Algorithms fail and the loosy data compression methords error and this causes glitch, and artifacts.

taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_artifact

Compression artifacts occur in many common media such as DVDs, common computer file formats such as JPEG, MP3, or MPEG files, and Sony's ATRAC compression algorithm. Uncompressed media (such as on Laserdiscs, Audio CDs, and WAV files) or losslessly compressed media (FLAC, PNG, etc.) do not suffer from compression artifacts unless they were encoded from a compressed source.

Where motion prediction is used, as in MPEG-2 or MPEG-4, compression artifacts tend to move with the optic flow of the image, leading to a peculiar effect, part way between a painting effect and "grime" that moves with objects in the scene.

Errors in the bit-stream can lead to errors similar to large quantization errors, or can disrupt the parsing of the data stream entirely for a short time, leading to "break-up" of the picture. Where gross errors have occurred in the bit-stream, it is not unknown for decoders to continue to apply 'painting' updates to the damaged picture, creating "ghost image" effects.

To stop the build-up of compression artifacts, most compression systems occasionally send an entire compressed frame without prediction or differencing, usually at the start of a shot and at regular intervals thereafter. In MPEG picture coding, these are known as "I-frames", with the 'I' standing for "intraframe compression."

Video compression is slightly differant as it the algorythmes looks for changes from one frame to the next, and only changes the pixels that have moved slightly, reducing the number of pixels that change in each image.

Blogg documents cideo coding fundamentals, includes an introduction and looks at codec's.
http://videocodecs.blogspot.com/2007/05/image-coding-fundamentals_08.html

Since video can be viewed as a sequence of pictures, video coding can be seen as an extension to image compression. Compression is the process of compacting data, reducing the number of bits. With eye specific features and removal of redundant data we can achieve compression. Compression involves a complementary pair of systems, a compressor (enCOder) and a decompressor (DECoder) and hence the name CODEC, the system performs that performs encoding & decoding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression

Most video compression is lossy, i.e. it operates on the premise that much of the data present before compression is not necessary for achieving good perceptual quality. For example, DVDs use a video coding standard called MPEG-2 that can compress ~2 hours of video data by 15 to 30 times while still producing a picture quality that is generally considered high quality for standard-definition video. Video compression, like data compression, is a tradeoff between disk space, video quality and the cost of hardware required to decompress the video in a reasonable time. However, if the video is overcompressed in a lossy manner, visible (and sometimes distracting) artifacts can appear.

Video is basically a three-dimensional array of color pixels. Two dimensions serve as spatial (horizontal and vertical) directions of the moving pictures, and one dimension represents the time domain. A data frame is a set of all pixels that correspond to a single point in time. Basically, a frame is the same as a still picture. (These are sometimes made up of fields. See interlace.)

Video data contains spatial and temporal redundancy. Similarities can thus be encoded by merely registering differences within a frame (spatial) and/or between frames (temporal). Spatial encoding is performed by taking advantage of the fact that the human eye is unable to distinguish small differences in color as easily as it can changes in brightness and so very similar areas of color can be "averaged out" in a similar way to jpeg images (JPEG image compression FAQ, part 1/2). With temporal compression only the changes from one frame to the next are encoded as often a large number of the pixels will be the same on a series of frames.

The Trip (adding narative)

2008-02-19T07:12:00.000-08:00

Knowing I was going to use video, photography and audio I need to add to narative to give some direction to the experiments i was wanting to do. Whilst recording along my route home I relised it was a perfect location to add some narrative to my work. With lots of movement and activity.

I do not have a DV cam or anything which can produce high resolution full framerate video so just recorded sections on my w850i which has about 7fps 640x480 video. Looking at the results I relized they were really bad, peoples faces were not visable, signs were unreadable and just genrealy the quality was awful. The reason for this was the compression of the video as the format is g3p. and also the quality of the lens and processing.

I discovered a link between loss of digital data and the loss of data in human memory.
I would like to explore this idea of compression more, looking at ways I can show information loss in an image.

View Larger Map

Here is the route i will take, drawn on google maps. Each placemark has a description of the surroundings, and why it is a nice idea to film there.

When filming my first trip in segments, something nice happened which made me relise that I really wanted to capture the city following, as it happeneds, and that storyboarding cannot happen in such detail as event are unplanned.

If you can see from the awful quality that a police man runs past me, followed my a police car. The audio adds more drama to the scene than the video alone.

I think its quite nice how the scene starts out quite slow paces, and you hear footsteps of women walking along side me, and the cars, and just general hum of the city, then the sirent rings on over the sound and you see this florence shape sorta fly past, which adds movement and the scene become quite dramatic, then we are alerted to the noise itself as the car passes.

You’re Memories Questionnaire

2007-12-13T07:09:00.000-08:00

I have just writted a questionaire and will post it to the following places.

deviant art - Forum can be viewed here
flickr
myspace
facebook

Hey everyone doing some work at uni about memories and I was wondering if you could quickly fill in this for me and get it sent back via email or comment or message or msn ect,ect J would be awesome!

Just 5 simple questions here we go...

1. What is your earliest memory?

2. What is your favourite memory?

3. What is your worst memory?

4. What were you thinking about before you started doing this?

5. Do you have any photographs/video of your favourite or worst memories? (if so could you please email me then at stimu1us@hotmail.com if they are appropriate)

Pose Reasearch for photoshoot Dated 13-12-07

2007-12-13T05:25:00.000-08:00

Pretty Thinking by ~chula-angel

erase your memory by ~Lenosh

Bound To Memory by ~sean-t-barnes

Memory of summer by ~chrysseis

You stream in my Memory by *Kaotika

Memories about you by ~Silvery-Lily

This is one of my photos taken of my grandma when she was telling stories, she stopped to puff on her fag, memories of the story still in her face, searching her mind for the next part of the tale.
smoking fucking kills by *stimu1us

polaroid by ~AmildCaseofSanity

902 polaroid by ~lllpolaroidslll

My favs taken from Flickr 'Polarid'Pool
earthfromtheground

neekatnite

sneakattackpython

Memory and Artisits

2007-12-13T05:03:00.000-08:00

taken from http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibitions/past_exhibitions/moving_pictures/highlights_13a.html

Pierre Huyghe questions the very definitions of time, memory, and engagement in his practice. Often using film as his source material, Huyghe dislocates it from the cinematic space of the theater and refashions it in his installations to extend the narrative space of the film through formal and conceptual strategies. His two-channel video projection The Third Memory takes as its point of departure a bank robbery committed by John Woytowicz in Brooklyn in 1972. The robbery became the subject of Sidney Lumet's film Dog Day Afternoon (1975), starring Al Pacino as the misguided robber who dominated television news during the crime. For his project, Huyghe tracked down Woytowicz and asked him to retell his story. The compelling result is a "third memory," neither a pure recollection of the original event (if such "purity" is ever possible) nor the "second memory," as depicted in the film. As Woytowicz recounts a story which is no longer his alone, notions of reality and fiction, the imagined and the documented, become inextricably intertwined.

In Pierre Huyghe's One Million Kingdoms (2001), a voice maps out unexplored lunar terrain. The voice belongs to a Japanese Manga character named AnnLee, for which Huyghe, along with artists Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Philippe Parreno, purchased the copyright in 1999. Featured in previous works by the three artists, here this brooding young girl speaks in a voice that is an electronically altered version of the astronaut Neil Armstrong's communiqués from the first moon landing; the text she recites conflates Armstrong's historic utterances with excerpts from Jules Verne's 1895 novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. Armstrong's words prompt AnnLee as she moves from place to place on a constantly fluctuating landscape, in which mountains, craters, ridges, and outcroppings rise and fall according to the sound waves of his (her) voice.

http://worldart.sjsu.edu/Obj19041$12435

For the sake of a memory by ~shimoda7
32x24 cm white drawing paper
HB, 2B (mechanical) and 3B (regular)
photo ref.
15 hours

What now one week remains ?

2007-12-13T04:09:00.000-08:00

I have less than a week to get my ideas into a presentable form to which I can explain how my work will progress after the Christmas Period. Having yet to still pin down a certain idea I am stuggling to think of more ideas.

From being behind the rest of the class I feel even more pressure to sort this work out. Finding out all my previous ideas were almost usless in terms of a core concept or a personal response, in the 3 weeks I have had I feel I have produced some substancial research on which to back up and form ideas, but time is wearing thin and I feel rushed to get some ideas together. At this point I feel I could spoil the rest of my work by rushing into an idea which hasn't been fully thought out (due to lack of time).

I feel like I should just work on one idea, gather illustrations, video and audio which I can then present, even if this would not be my final idea it would get the presentation out of the way so over the christmas period I can finish my dissertation and come back in January with more time to work on my ideas.

These next few days are crutial to my wellbeing on the course so I have planned my days agressivly on TaDa.com. My lack of attendance to the course is not helpping either, I am unsure of what is going on in the university, unsure of the actual presentation date, I assume it would be on the wednesday and even spread over onto the thursday.

I will need 2x A2 storyboards designing for the presentation along with prototypes for my main idea. This will have to be printed on Monday or at the very latest Tuesday morning! I also need to email Jen about seeing her or someone on monday to go over the final ideas for the presentation. I am not very confident speaking to a group of people that size even if it is my class, the stressful timeframe will not help that day either.

So now I have arrange a photo session to get some images together to use with/as illustations for the storyboards. I have started to create an idenity for a website/storyboards which has colourschemes and typefaces, although these need more work. Inspiration is a main problem, and I will spend part of today looking for artists which use memory in there work. I need to create a logo for the project but STILL have not recived my logo book in the mail! The blog is now backed up in a word document but it is in draft form, although now is not the time to be worrying about how my sketchbook look, I just need to get this presentation sorted out.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Film Review

2007-12-12T12:07:00.000-08:00

image taken from http://www.mikejonze.com/images/TV/hellotomorrow2.jpg

Before I watched this I had heard many a good word about this film. I don’t actually know why I hadn’t seen it before. The film is about a couple whose relationship has gone wrong and the woman goes to see a doctor about getting all her memories removed from the relationship. The next day her boyfriend realizes that she doesn’t know who she is and decided to get his memories wiped.

The film is then shot from 2 perspectives; one is the real world outside his mind. The other is the memories from inside the man’s mind. He is in a dream state induced by drugs, from here his memories which have been mapped the day before are cleared.

From the other films I have seen which look at memory I found to be the most visually exploration. The style and camera work were amazing, just the thing I like. There is one scene where the main character is in a street chasing after his girlfriend after an argument. He parks his car at one side of the street and walks chasing her. This was perceived as the memory, he then steps out of the memory and walks to the other side of the street where his car is then in front of him. Walking back on himself he walks to where he previously was and his car is where he left it. He then runs to catch up with his memory and the car seems to be at the end of the road. After arguing which was the memory, he walks back on himself again to find the car where he left it in the original place. The whole thing is shot with amazing fluidity and there aren’t any points where you feel that time was stop, the whole shoot was well thought out and the end result was amazing and confusing.

Other visuals from this film were the forgetting of faces which blurred. I have already myself used the same idea so I wouldn’t think the idea was very original but the way in which it was shot was. It was actually quite scary when the doctor’s face was missing because the memories have been previously wiped. When memories were being wiped the scene transformed into a spotlight area and you could only see from within the spotlight. When everything was dark and you just saw a blurred face it was quite disturbing. I think this portrayed the emotions on the man very well.

Other visuals were any data not remembered or needed was not shown in the dream state. There is another scene in the library and all the books spines and bookcase sections have been masked out. The whole thing isn’t just stationary; it has a fluid feel to it. Some spines are shown and then suddenly flash with a white blocked area of the spine. I think this was to show the memory being wiped but in my eyes a memory would not have remembered little if any of the books when his concentration was directed towards his girlfriend.

image taken from http://www.chucksconnection.com/eternalsunshine/eternal01.jpg

The ending of the removal of his memories is quite surreal. He is saying goodbye to his girlfriend as the memory of the relationship is starting. To say goodbye at the start of something is quite strange. As he is doing this the house is falling apart around him. This memory was strongest in his mind and the falling down of the house was slow. I think the director wanted to show that the strongest memories are the hardest to forget. The gradual destruction of the house showed this and it was different from the other style used to show the removal of memories.

I thought this was a very interesting and well shot movie. Some of the casting let the film down but Jimm Carry’s performance was amazing. Some of the film was cluttered with humour which I thought never really worked too well. The scene where they were getting drunk and stoned while his memories were being wiped was a bit over the top, although I did see the reason for using something which distracted the observer from the waking of the dream state.

I found a relationship to another film called ’50 First Dates’ where there is a dream state from which memories are created, although the science behind them are a little different. In my research I found out that dreaming helps with the organizing of the long term memory. In Eternal Sunshine the removal of memories was seen in a dream state where as in 50 First Dates she was unable to store her day’s information while sleeping. They both showed this removal of memories while in sleep states.

image taken from http://pigmotel.com/suite313/files/2006/12/eternal-sunshine-pigmotel.jpg

50 First Dates Film Review

2007-12-12T11:39:00.000-08:00

This film was a comedy which was based around a form of amnesia called anterograde. The film was funny as with all Sandler films but I was trying hard to keep serious and look at the ways memory problems were shown. Unlike Eternal Sunshine there was no visual evidence of how her memory was being affected, instead it was all down to acting to show the removal of a memory.

The film used a video camera to show the main character every morning about her situation. This was the method used to document the past. Almost as if her memories were on a video tape although they were not her own memories. Constructed by her boyfriend and family the video tape was only a reminder to her of how her life was being lived, there were none of her own emotions accept what was being taped. When she kisses her boyfriend on the video tape, every day she had to construct new feelings towards him for a constructed scene.

There were references to the memory condition, but the film called it ‘goldfield’s syndrome’ which I have found out is not a condition at all. This must just have been to keep the movie from getting to serious; after all it is a comedy.

A few people I have spoken to about the movie told me they found her quite annoying forgetting all these amazing memories that she had previously have. This is something I could use in my work. Repetition is a large part of the condition she had. Every day she was living the day she lost her memory, everything repeated just as it was one year ago. This could be something I chose to look at, I immediately think of Warhol’s lino prints when I think of repetition in art. Also in one of my ideas before I started to concentrate on memory I looked at an artist’s piece which used repletion of the eye. In a documentary called ‘Takashi Murakami - Toying with Art’ it explains that Takashi is the next stage of pop art and it directly references his work back to Warhol’s and another artist called Jeff Koons.

image taken from http://www.netweed.com/prohiphop/graf/superflat.jpg

Another thing I touch upon when writing my review for Eternal Dream was the dreaming in the film. When she sleeps her ability to organize her long term memory doesn’t work due to her disorder. She is a painter and she paints all these images of her boyfriend, she says they are from her dreams. This means that she doesn’t have a problem with encoding her memories more that she cannot retrieve them. There has been proof that dreaming helps memory which is something I would like to look into for my ideas. I think there is something about dreaming which is similar to a memory.

Memories are not accurate and each person will have a different memory of the same event due to individual senses of the body recording each owns environment. Like dream’s memories can warp and become something they once were not. They are both a non-reality, you can dream that a shirt is red when it is in fact blue, also you might not remember the colour of a shirt and you just add your own colour which could be yellow when in fact it was blue. I think this is also something I would need to do a little more research on but there is something which appeals to me to use in my work.

Minority Report Film Review

2007-12-12T11:35:00.000-08:00

image taken from http://static.flickr.com/101/299025436_02bdbafe84_o.jpg

This film explores identity the way that ‘you are, who you are’. It’s more about trying hiding from yourself (or what you are going to do). It’s a well thought out film with strong theories about how this system they created works. It’s’ called ‘PreCrime’ and it allows people to see into the future before a murder is committed. People are then punished before the crime is committed. As with all systems with humans involved there are flaws. The system can get confused if murders occur which looks exactly the same as other.

image taken from http://www.othervoices.org/2.3/msharpe/shot.jpg

The main character has to prove he is innocent to a crime he currently had not committed. There’s a scene in the movie where he had to get his eyes replaced, as in the future identity is from the iris. This muscle is individual to each person just like a fingerprint. Like in Gattiaca identity is from the body part which is individual to each person. In both movies the main character has to hide his real identity to allow them to reach their goals.

I thought that a lot of the movie wasn’t too helpful with my ideas. It dealt with identity briefly and the rest was about how he has to prove himself innocent.

Gattaca Report Film Review

2007-12-12T11:16:00.000-08:00

image taken from http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/images/gattaca17.jpg

The film is strongly about identity but it uses genetics to show this. When I think of identity I think about how a person looks physically or how they sound. These can all be copied by technology, Gattaca uses individual genetics to ensure that an identity is kept. The film is about a man who was born with poor genetics and to achieve his dream he must be someone who he is not. He pays to become someone else. With the help of a man who has perfect genes he is able to become this person. The person who has the perfect genetics was in an accident and unable to be his live his life at full potential, this is why he decides to help out the main character.

image taken from http://www.technovelgy.com/graphics/content06/gattaca2.jpg

The film uses technology to mask the man’s true identity, plastic fingerprints with blood underneath is used for when the ID scanners are pricked. Hair, blood urine and skin are all used to help create this fraud. A murder then accurse in the film and it almost becomes a detective film, he is then under suspicion throughout the rest of the film. It has a similar theme to Minority Report although he is not innocent like in the other film but both are on the run.

Photographic Memory

2007-12-10T07:57:00.000-08:00

Taken from wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_memory

Photographic memory, or total recall is the ability to recall images, sounds, or objects in memory with extreme accuracy and in seemingly abundant volume. The word eidetic means extraordinarily detailed or vivid. Eidetic memory can have a very different meaning for memory experts who use the picture elicitation method to detect it. Eidetic memory as observed in children is typified by the ability of an individual to study an image for approximately 30 seconds, and maintain a nearly perfect photographic memory of that image for a short time once it has been removed--indeed such eidetikers claim to "see" the image on the blank canvas as vividly and in as perfect detail as if it were still there.

While many people demonstrate extraordinary memory abilities, it is unlikely that true eidetic memory, if it exists at all, is found in adults. While many famous artists and composers (Claude, Monet and Mozart) are commonly thought to have had eidetic memory, it is possible that their memories simply became highly trained in their respective fields of art, as they each devoted large portions of their waking hours towards the improvement of their abilities. Such a focus on their individual arts most likely improved the relevant parts of their memory, which may account for their surprising abilities.

Guinness World Records lists people with extraordinary memories. For example, on July 2, 2005, Akira Haraguchi managed to recite pi's first 83,431 decimal places from memory and more recently to 100,000 decimal places in 16 hours (October 4, 2006). The 2004 World Memory Champion Ben Pridmore memorized the order of cards in a randomly shuffled 52-card deck in 31.03 seconds.

Loci is a methord of memory learning in which you remember a place to remember an piece of information. Here is a walkthrough quick guide to the methord of loci and it is explained in nice detail from a segmet of a c4 TV program. The information is pulled from here http://www.ba.infn.it/~zito/loci.html.

To use the method of loci bring to mind a familiar building, such as your house. Take a moment to conduct a mental walk through the rooms in your house. Pay particular attention to the details , noticing any imperfections, like scratches: anything that makes your mental images more vivid. Make sure you can move easily from one room to another.
Along your route create a list of "loci" :i.e. well defined parts of the room that you can use later to memorize things.A locus can be a door, a bed, an oven, etc. Be sure that you can easily go from locus to locus as you visit the house.

Now, when you are faced with a list of words or ideas to be memorized, you must form visual images for each of the words and place them, in order, on the loci in your route. To recall the words or ideas now you take a mental walk throughout your house, asking yourself , "What is on the living-room door? What's on the sleeping room bed. What's in the oven?" And so on.
Associating the words or ideas to remember with the loci, you should create surprising images. More striking is the created image, more easily you will remember the thing.

To help better show what is meant by photographic memory and / or amazing feats of remembering large amounts of data accuratly, here are some videos from youtube.

Derren Brown Photographic Memory

Derron Brown -- "Trick of the Mind" Card/Memory

Derren Brown - Winning at Blackjack memory tricks black jack

Derren Brown applies the psychology of memory

Stephen Wiltshire draws Rome from memory

Stephen Wiltshire draws Tokyo from memory

http://www.slate.com/id/2140685/ Here I found an artical which is written in a way as to suggest that the human mind is limitless but that there is no such thing as photographic memory, mearly strongminded dedication to something in life in which you build an amazing memory, Stephen Wiltshire is referanced in the artical but is seen as not having true photographic memory.

Stephen Wiltshire, has been called the "human camera" for his ability to create sketches of a scene after looking at it for just a few seconds. But even he doesn't have a truly photographic memory. His mind doesn't work like a Xerox. He takes liberties.

I also found this quite striking so I followed the link to learn more about his person.

Earlier this year, a group of memory researchers at the University of California-Irvine published an astonishing article about a woman called AJ who can apparently remember every day of her life since childhood.

Taken from http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=1738881&page=1

Give her any date, she said, and she could recall the day of the week, usually what the weather was like on that day, personal details of her life at that time, and major news events that occurred on that date.

McGaugh has spent decades studying how such things as stress hormones and emotions affect memory, and at first he thought AJ's memories were of such emotional power that she couldn't forget them.

That level of recall suggests another hypothesis. Some people are able to recall past events by categorizing them. Certain events, or facts, are associated with others, and filed away together so that they may be easier to access. That's a trick that is often used by entertainers who use feats of memory to wow their audience.

It's possible that AJ's brain has some "disconnections" that help her recall past events from her memory bank without interference from the parts of her brain that act as general processors. But the problem is that even if they find some interesting wiring through brain scans, the researchers will be limited in their conclusions by the fact that AJ seems to be unique.

The scientists working with AJ have given the phnomonen a name called 'hyperthymestic syndrome'. It seams that AJ is very organised person possiably with OCD (obsesive-compulsive dissorder) which enables her to remember information with amazing accuracy. Information similar to the artical I just read can be found here http://nootropics.com/hyperthymestic/index.html but scanning through the text is seams relativly the same.

Memory Dissorders / Illnesses

2007-12-05T15:11:00.000-08:00

When we talk about memory disorders, probless or an illness the main name 'Amnesia'.
Taken from wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesia

* Anterograde amnesia
* Traumatic amnesia
*Dissociative Amnesia
*Dissociative Fugue
*Posthypnotic amnesia
*Lacunar amnesia
*Childhood amnesia
*Transient Global Amnesia
*Source amnesia
*Memory distrust syndrome

Types of amnesia

* In anterograde amnesia, new events contained in the immediate memory are not transferred to the permanent as long-term memory. The sufferer will not be able to remember anything that occurs after the onset of this type of amnesia for more than a brief period following the event.

* Retrograde amnesia is the inability to recall some memory or memories of the past, beyond ordinary forgetfulness.

The terms are used to categorize patterns of symptoms, rather than to indicate a particular cause or etiology. Both categories of amnesia can occur together in the same patient, and commonly result from drug effects or damage to the brain regions most closely associated with episodic/declarative memory: the medial temporal lobes and especially the hippocampus.

An example of mixed retrograde and anterograde amnesia may be a motorcyclist unable to recall driving his motorbike prior to his head injury (retrograde amnesia), nor can he recall the hospital ward where he is told he had conversations with family over the next two days (anterograde amnesia).

* Traumatic amnesia is generally due to a head injury (fall, knock on the head). Traumatic amnesia is often transient, but may be permanent of either anterograde, retrograde, or mixed type. The extent of the period covered by the amnesia is related to the degree of injury and may give an indication of the prognosis for recovery of other functions. Mild trauma, such as a car accident that could result in no more than mild whiplash, might cause the occupant of a car to have no memory of the moments just before the accident due to a brief interruption in the short/long-term memory transfer mechanism.

* Dissociative Amnesia results from a psychological cause as opposed to direct damage to the brain caused by head injury, physical trauma or disease, which is known as organic amnesia. Dissociative Amnesia can include:

* Referring to inability to recall information, usually about stressful or traumatic events in persons' lives, such as a violent attack or rape. The memory is stored in long term memory, but access to it is impaired because of psychological defense mechanisms. Persons retain the capacity to learn new information and there may be some later partial or complete recovery of memory. This contrasts with e.g. anterograde amnesia caused by amnestics such as benzodiazepines or alcohol, where an experience was prevented from being transferred from temporary to permanent memory storage: it will never be recovered, because it was never stored in the first place. Formerly known as "Psychogenic Amnesia"

* Dissociative Fugue (formerly Psychogenic Fugue) is also known as fugue state. It is caused by psychological trauma and is usually temporary, unresolved and therefore may return. The Merck Manual defines it as "one or more episodes of amnesia in which the inability to recall some or all of one's past and either the loss of one's identity or the formation of a new identity occur with sudden, unexpected, purposeful travel away from home" [2]. While popular in fiction, it is extremely rare.

* Posthypnotic amnesia is where events during hypnosis are forgotten, or where past memories are unable to be recalled.

* Lacunar amnesia is the loss of memory about one specific event.

* Childhood amnesia (also known as infantile amnesia) is the common inability to remember events from one's own childhood. Whilst Sigmund Freud attributed this to sexual repression, others have theorised that this may be due to language development or immature parts of the brain. This is often exploited by the use of false memories in child abuse cases.

* Transient Global Amnesia is a well described medical and clinical phenomenon. This form of amnesia is distinct in that abnormalities in the hippocampi can sometimes be visualized using a special form of MRI of the brain known as diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). Symptoms typically last for less than a day and there is often no clear precipitating factor nor any other neurological deficits. The cause of this syndrome is not clear, hypotheses include transient reduced blood flow, possible seizure or an atypical type of migraine. Patients are typically amnestic of events more than a few minutes in the past, though immediate recall is usually preserved.

* Source amnesia is a memory disorder in which someone can recall certain information, but they do not know where or how they obtained the information.

* Memory distrust syndrome is a term invented by the psychologist Gisli Gudjonsson to describe a situation where someone is unable to trust their own memory.

* Excessive short-term alcohol consumption can cause a blackout phenomenon, with the amnesia being of the anterograde type.

* Long-term alcoholism or malnutrition can cause a type of memory loss known as Korsakoff's syndrome. This is caused by brain damage due to a Vitamin B1 deficiency and will be progressive if alcohol intake and nutrition pattern are not modified. Other neurological problems are likely to be present in combination with this type of Amnesia. Korsakoff's syndrome is also known to be connected with confabulation.

As you can see there are many types of memory problems, they are mainly due to either problems with encoding into LTM (long term memory) or the retreaval from LTM into the STM (short term memory) for useage. There are afew that I would like to look into further because I feel they have the most potential to produce ideas for a final piece of work. These are

Anterograde Amnesia
Retrograde Amnesia
Memory Distrust Syndrome
The "Blackout Phenomenon" (previously looked at as my first 2nd year project)

First I will look at Anterograde.

From the Wiki page I was able to find a paragraph about the symptoms from this type of amnisia.

In the case that the amnesia is drug-induced, it may be short-lived and patients can recover from it. In the other case, which has been studied extensively since the early 1970s, patients often have damage that is permanent, although some recovery is possible, depending on the nature of the pathophysiology. Usually, there remains some capacity for learning although it may be very elementary. In cases of pure anterograde amnesia, patients have recollections of events prior to the injury but cannot recall day-to-day information or new facts that were presented to them after the injury occurred.

In most cases of anterograde amnesia, patients lose declarative memory, or the recollection of facts, but they retain non-declarative memory, often called procedural memory. For instance, they are able to remember and in some cases learn how to do things such as talking on the phone or riding a bicycle, but they may not remember what they had eaten earlier that day for lunch. In addition, patients have a diminished ability to remember the temporal context in which objects were presented. Certain authors claim that the deficit in temporal context memory is more significant than the deficit in semantic learning ability.

Taken from http://medguides.medicines.org.uk/document.aspx?name=Anterograde%20amnesia

Anterograde amnesia: This is a specific memory difficulty. Patients have good memory of events that happened before the start of their illness, but have difficulty remembering events that have happened since the illness.

I found a case of the type of illness on this site http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=861
It explains how someone live with the illness, their daily experiences and how the illness effects him. Here are little paragraphs I found intresting when reading.

In contrast, anterograde amnesia does not deprive the sufferer of their identity, their past, or their skills; it merely prevents new memories from forming. As a consequence one's final memories are frozen in perpetuity, often accompanied by a constant sensation that one has just awoken from an "unconscious" state which filled the intervening time.

Again we see referances to sleep and this idea of ones identity, I like this idea of freezing. I think this works well with my possiable use of photography when working on my ideas. The text then goes on to explain that from a young age "henry" had seizures every few minuates which left him unconsous. Doctors worked on the mans temproal lobe in order to stop or slow the gap between the seizures.

However the surgeon was distressed to discover that the removal of the hippocampi had stripped Henry of his ability to form new memories.

He is stricken with renewed grief every time he learns of his mother's death. The grief is short-lived, however, as the substance of the news soon slips from the feeble grasp of his "working memory."

Similar cases of anterograde amnesia have appeared over the years, often caused by Korsakoff's Syndrome, a thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency brought on by chronic alcoholism, malnutrition, eating disorders, or poisoning.

From reading this I have found out that this type of illness is caused by the damaging or removal of the hippocampus which is used to convert STM into LTM. Here is a long but very intesting paragraph taken from the same site again. It tells us that although people with the illness dont seamed to remember events they are able to learn tasks over time, even if the people were experiencing them for the first time. There is also a sketch by "henry or H.M" which shows the actual living space of HM and then his interpritation of the space from his memory (which appently isn't able to encode new memories)

Though anterograde amnesiacs are blocked from storing new information, researchers were astonished to discover that subjects are nonetheless capable of mastering new and complex tasks over time. Subjects who repeatedly practice skills such as backwards writing or guitar-playing can demonstrate measurable improvement, though in each instance the subject believes that he or she is attempting the task for the first time. This insight cast serious doubt upon the long-held belief that all memory is stored in a common mental reservoir. It also demonstrated that procedural memory– the "how to" memory of motor skills– is not governed by the exact same circuitry as episodic memory (autobiographical events) and semantic memory (general knowledge and facts). A diagram of one of Henry M's living spaces, and his depiction of it three years after moving out.Additionally, some patients have experienced the Tetris Effect hours or days after playing the game during experiments; they describe vivid dreams of falling Tetris shapes though they possess no conscious memory of the game's existence.

I enjoyed reading this artical as it had a character and short stories about HM which made it intesting to read. At the end it referances to 'Memento'. An I have learnt about 'reverse chronology' which I knew myself was in the film but not the name. HM was one of the first people scienctists looked a to learn about this form of animisa.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7584970
An audio clip of HM can be found from research news. It explains the artical as in audio which interviews with HM where scientists ask him questions. It also goes into more depth about the sciences of memories, which I have already looked at.
Dr Corkin's (the doctor who spent decades studying with HM) paper can be found at this link
http://homepage.mac.com/sanagnos/corkin2002.pdf.
After reading the paper I have found out that the removed size of the hippocampi is related to the servarity of the amnisa. Also memory is encoded with this type of amnisa its problems with its retreaval which causes the problems. People with this problem do not loose there idenity like with other illness's, they have a sence of who they are, due to them being able to remember past events.

Searching the links at the bottom of the page I discovered another story from a broadsheet about an extreme case of amnisa which linked more than one type. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,1394684,00.html

Deborah describes it, 'melts like snow, leaving not a trace'

I really enjoyed this idea of the memory being snow, a solid stable object at its current state but eventualy destined to be reduced to water, not a trace of what it once was. I really should think of things like this to show memory, as memories are hard to show for what they are.

How do we know what we are seeing is a memory or reality?

The artical referances to 'Hades' rivers from greek mythology which one of the rivers was forgetfulness and memory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemosyne

Dead souls drank from Lethe so they would not remember their past lives when reincarnated. Initiates were encouraged to drink from the river Mnemosyne when they died, instead of Lethe.

further reading of the artical I noticed something which I had overlooked. This was the way that people with this problem of recalling information from LTM recorded there events. Like with the film 50 First Dates the main character keeps a diary of events she wants to remember and how she felt at that time. This is something I could look at further, the methord of recording events, and if changing these would effect how a person would look at the world.

What if you could 'program' a persons idenity by writing their memories for them?

Here is a paragraph from the artical which shows the diary of someone with amnisia.

His diaries show his desperation and also the articulate man he had so recently been. '7.46am: I wake for the first time. 7.47am: This illness has been like death till NOW. All senses work. 8.07am: I AM awake. 8.31am: Now I am really, completely awake. 9.06am: Now I am perfectly, overwhelmingly awake. 9.34am: Now I am superlatively, actually awake.'

This was taken later down it talks about the soul and that the deisease has taken away his soul. This is another thing I could look at although it would largely get confused with death.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks asks in his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, 'What sort of life (if any), what sort of world, what sort of self, can be preserved in a man who has lost the greater part of his memory and, with this, his past, and his moorings in time?' Of a patient with similar symptoms to Clive, he writes: 'One tended to think of him, instinctively, as a spiritual casualty - a lost soul. Was it possible that he had really been "de-souled" by the disease?'

I looked at the tetris effect quickly after reading about HM and found that people with retrograde amnisa dreapt of tetris shapes after playing the game alot. This again links somehow with being able to recall memories inside a dream but not while in a conouse awakened state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect

I have just been looking on youtube and found a documentry about Clive Wearing.

Part 1a

Part 1b

Part 2a

Part 2b

Part 2c

Part 2d

There is a newer documenty which I found a 9min clip of on youtube.

So what is Retrograde Amnesia?
Taken from wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrograde_amnesia

Retrograde amnesia is a form of amnesia where someone will be unable to recall events that occurred before the onset of amnesia.

Retrograde amnesia is caused by trauma that results in brain injury. Critical details of the physical changes in the brain that cause retrograde amnesia are still unknown. Retrograde amnesia is often temporally graded, meaning that remote memories are more easily accessible than events occurring just prior to the trauma.

Both Anterograde Amnesia and Retrograde Amnesia often occur together and the Clive Wearing case is one of the worst examples of this.

A documentry film which aired on channel 4 called 'Unknown White Male' explored how a man woke up on the subway with a headache and had no recolection of himself or his past. He was able to form new memories but everything sentimental to him was gone. He had no idea who he was, no idenity. Here is the youtube clip of the trailer for Unknown White Male.

Taken from http://unknownwhitemale.co.uk/medical/amnesia.php I found this to be intresting in how it is seen to be "convenient" to loose your memory. This makes me think back to the memory pill fiction I found and look at some of the questions and also why it is important for us to keep our memories. I could see it being convenient if the person has a 'bad' life and wanted a fresh start.The site also looks at verious movies which are based around the theme of memory.

It can be very convenient to loose your memory. We all have things in our past that we'd like to forget; most of us, at some time or other, have entertained the fantasy of having a second chance at life, of wiping the slate clean and starting again. We only have someone's word for it that they can't remember who they are, and as extreme amnesia may not have an obvious or identifiable cause and tends not to affect learned skills like language use, car driving, or piano playing, it can often seem implausible even when it's completely genuine.

Memory Removal Pill

2007-12-04T10:33:00.000-08:00

Image taken from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=454585&in_page_id=1774

Information taken from http://www.deltaflow.com/?p=402
Videos can be found here http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/21/memory_drug? But these were offline when I wanted to watch them.

60 minutes has a report (A Pill to Forget?) (Video’s here) on a drug that can erase memories. Propranolol is a drug that (among other things) seems to erase link between an intense emotional event and the memory.
Psychiatrists hope to treat patients suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (i.e. victims of war, rape, or accidents). Usually if someone has experienced a traumatic event and then, years later, sees or hears something that reminds them of that experience, then the emotions from the trauma come back in full force. However, the drug shows promise that it can remove these painful memories.

Looking at the site it doesn’t seam professional to me and as I read I get the impression it is just some made up drug, it talks about death and memories after death. I’m not sure how to react at the moment but I shall look further into this to find out if it is fact or merely fiction.

Opponents of the drug believe that our memories make us who we are. Erasing painful memories would rob us of the chance to become better people. They also fear the drug will be used recreationally, to erase minor unpleasant or embarrassing moments from our memory.

I thought this was really interesting saying memories make us who we are and removing them will remove a part of our person. The chance to become a better person through bad memories is good argument against the pill (if it is real).

I looked into this so called pill and it was called http://www2.netdoctor.co.uk/medicines/100002177.html

It works by blocking communication paths in the body like most drugs and the advantages are mainly a lower blood pressure. Reading through the text there was nothing about memory and the loss of it and I tried looking for side effect but I couldn't find any relating to memory.

I then looked into PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) on wiki and found this little paragraph.

Propranolol, a beta blocker which appears to inhibit the formation of traumatic memories by blocking adrenaline's effects on the amygdala, has been used in an attempt to reduce the impact of traumatic events.

I found some more informative text from here http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/neuro/memory_drugs_sd.html

Memory-altering drug research is currently focused on propranolol, one of several so-called beta blockers widely used to reduce blood pressure, treat abnormal heart rhythms and prevent migraines. The brand name for propranolol is Inderal. Other beta blocker brand names are Inderide, Innopran XL, Betachron E-R, Kerlone, Lopressor, Tenormin, Toprol XL, Visken and Zebeta.

Beta blockers work by "blocking" the simulative influence of stress hormones – specifically adrenaline – upon the body, relaxing blood vessels and slowing nerve impulses inside the heart.

Experiments indicate propranolol also blocks the effect of adrenaline upon areas of the brain involved in memory formation, including the amygdala. It seems to disconnect emotion from memory.

Cahill and McGaugh then presented the second, emotionally upsetting story with slides to a third group of volunteers who were given a standard dose of propranolol or endurol (another beta blocker). Their memories, when tested three weeks later, were "just like that of subjects who had received the boring story," said McGaugh.

It seems the pill is taken when the memories at that time want to be forgotten for the present time. I think I need to look into PTSD treatments to fully understand how the beta blockers work to block memories from the past.

Subjects remembered the story, but without any emotional depth.

Such findings suggest an obvious potential therapeutic benefit: If people who have just experienced a traumatic event could be given a memory-dampening drug like propranolol, they might avoid suffering later psychic damage, such as post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

This would seem to suggest that it would be taken just after an event which would not want to be remembering on an emotional level. The users don’t forget the event but they lost the emotions which came from the event. Examples would be in war or where disturbing events occur, mostly involving death.

In its report, the council worries that dampening painful memories – or in the future, erasing them altogether – may disconnect people from reality or their true selves.

I found this little statement quite interesting looking at the world as a reality and removing something from your memory alters a persons sense of reality and identity. Each person must have their own sense of what reality is, but their own memories must form this reality. I could possibly take some ideas this way and look at how a memory would affect the perception of what a reality is. I have already looked a little into dreaming which in itself is a non-reality created around events, ideas, emotions and memories.

"It's the morning-after pill for just about anything that produces regret, remorse, pain, or guilt," said Dr. Leon Kass

I also liked the idea that it could be seen as a disposable pill, linking with the removal of an event which shouldn't if didn't want to happen. I can see the pills place in society for example a rape victim who shouldn't have to remember what they went thought. There is no learning taken from the experience the victim has to hold for the rest of their lives. Some people get deeply depressed by the emotions they feel and simply cannot live out their lives like before the event. The drug would allow them to continue their lives with ought the emotional baggage from what happened.

For example, the council posited, what if somebody committed an act of violence and then took propranolol to dull the emotional impact. Would they come to think of violence as more tolerable than it really is?

Here is another situation which is against the use of the drug. By dulling the emotional response a crime committed this could allow the crime to be repeated without any regrets or doubts from the emotions remembered from the previous crime.

McGaugh and similarly minded researchers doubt science will ever be able to probe an individual's mind, precisely plucking and altering specific memories like they do in movies. The brains of real people are far too complex. Memories aren't single molecules or neurons, but intricate patterns of biochemical and electrical energy occurring in various parts of the brain and different levels of the mind.

Anderson and Gabrieli discovered that when people consciously determine not to think about something they do not want to remember, their ability to recall that memory gradually weakens. Call it motivated forgetting.

Prospects of a pill-to-forget hitting the market anytime soon are nil.

Again taken from the same site it tells us that reparation allows the forgetting of a memory. Reparation allows us to encode for long term memory but it works the other way around too. Another small statement tells us that a pill to forget is just a science and will not become commercialized any time soon.

After a bit more research I found out diazepam a drug marketed as Valium also has memory impairing effects.

taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valium

Benzodiazepines such as diazepam impair learning and memory via their action on benzodiazepine receptors which causes a dysfunction in the cholinergic neuronal system.

I came across BBC news which talks about the opposite of a pill which allows the 'boost' of memory.
taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4539551.stm

The article explains that is the drug causes the reactions in the brain to occur which usually fails with sleep. They cause neutrons to communicate with each other better. This allows for better learning and enhances memory. The carried out an experiment which people too either a dummy pill or the real pill and then were tested throughout the night. The people who took the pill performed the tasks much better than the people who took the dummy pill.

Taken from find articles http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_6_21/ai_62277748
I found a nice question which I have already been asking myself throughout this pill research. I thought it would be a good idea to document these and reference back to them when generating more focused ideas about my project.

What if you could swallow a little pill that gave you a photographic memory, the ability to form long-term memories instantly?

This is something I would like to look at in my work. There is an advertisement for a glasses company in which a man is walking through the woods and everything his eyes capture fall at his feet in the form of a Polaroid. I have thought of using something like this which might look into Photographic memory as a theme. Using a Polaroid camera myself you can create some interesting images. With analog photography it’s all in the chemicals, like memory it isn't perfect. Using expired film gives unexpected results like an unsure memory. Colours are not what they are in reality, as a memory which is unsure of the colour of a car, clothing or street sign.

From the same article there was an experiment with flies which explored the ability to speed up memory being encoded into long term memory with little repetition needed.

Yin and Tully tested the flies by placing them in the middle of a double-ended tube and blowing tennis-shoe scent in one end and licorice scent in the other. Flies with normal levels of the memory protein needed to be zapped 10 times before they stopped moving toward the licorice scent. In other words, they could build the neural connections needed for an "Avoid licorice!" memory, but it required spaced repetition--just as normal humans must say a sentence over and over again to memorize it. Yin and Tully then tested a strain with low levels of memory protein and found that those poor flies never made the structural changes necessary for lasting memory. No matter how many shocks they received, they went for licorice scent as often as they went for tennis-shoe scent.

The flies with an overabundance of memory protein formed long-term memory instantly. After only one trial, they knew to avoid licorice the rest of their lives. Tully points out that these flies haven't gotten smarter--they'll never solve quadratic equations. Extra memory protein simply accelerates the pace of memorization by eliminating the need for repetition.

Image taken from http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1800019594/photo/495777
Showing how information is transferred into the longterm memory in the film 'The Matrix'

What would the world be like if you could take a pill and learn without repetition? The Matrix uses a way of sending information into our Semantic and Procedural memory which in almost instant. Would this pill strive to be more like the futuristic feels we see today? How long would it take a child to pass though school?

Emotions of Memory

2007-12-04T08:29:00.000-08:00

I have previously come across the amygdalae in the brain which deals with emotions and some aspects of memory. I found out that emotions can effect how things are learnt, and the intencity of the emotions allows for a better more accurate memory. I now want to see if there are other ways emotions can effect memory.

Taken from http://www.memory-key.com/NatureofMemory/emotion.htm
The memory of strongly emotional images and events may be at the expense of other information. Thus, you may be less likely to remember information if it is followed by something that is strongly emotional. This effect appears to be stronger for women.

Pleasant emotions appear to fade more slowly from our memory than unpleasant emotions, but among those with mild depression, unpleasant and pleasant emotions tend to fade evenly, while older adults seem to regulate their emotions better than younger people, and may encode less information that is negative.

Mood congruence: whereby we remember events that match our current mood thus, when we're depressed, we tend to remember negative events.

Mood dependence: which refers to the fact that remembering is easier when your mood at retrieval matches your mood at encoding (thus, your chances of remembering an event or fact are greater if you evoke the emotional state you were in at the time of experiencing the event or learning the fact)

There were afew intresting things I found on this site one being that women more more likely to not remember things after something emotional. I would link this to a hormanal thing, there hormones and effection the emotions of a person, which then effects the memory. I also found the mood dependance quite intresting and I could relate to what it was saying. Memories are easier to remember when you are in the emotional state when the memory was encoded.

Looking at wiki it had a theory that evolution is responsable for emotions effecting our memory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_memory

The activity of emotionally enhanced memory retention can be linked to human evolution; during early development, responsive behavior to environmental events would have progressed as a process of trial and error. Survival depended on behavioral patterns that were repeated or reinforced through life and death situations. Through evolution, this process of learning became genetically embedded in humans and all animal species in what is known as "fight or flight" instinct. Artificially inducing this instinct through traumatic physical or emotional stimuli essentially creates the same physiological condition that heightens memory retention by exiting neuro-chemical activity affecting areas of the brain responsible for encoding and recalling memory.

Contextual effects occur as a result of the degree of similarity between the encoding context and the retrieval context of an emotional dimension. The main findings are that the current mood we are in affects what is attended, encoded and ultimately retrieved, as reflected in two similar but subtly different effects: the mood congruence effect and mood-state dependent retrieval.

I found this artical on science daily which goes into depth about a study of emotion and the brain this is taken from that artical.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/06/040610081107.htm

Second, to delineate the contribution of the emotion and memory-related regions during emotional memory formation, the study used precise anatomical methods, which involved tracing of these regions on each subject's brain image. Thus, it was possible to precisely localize the signal coming from anatomically proximal brain regions. As expected, analysis of the behavioral data revealed evidence that the memories of emotional images were more strongly encoded than the neutral ones. And importantly, the brain scans showed that the emotional memories evoked activity in the amygdala as well as the "medial temporal lobe memory" structures. Specifically, these structures include the hippocampus and associated regions. Moreover, according to Dolcos, the analysis revealed a significant correlation between the strength of activity in the emotion- and memory-related brain regions.

This shows proof that emotions effect memory.
This is lifted from http://sciencenewsmagazine.org/articles/20031108/fob5.asp

Emotionally charged events often seem particularly memorable. But this vivid recall may come at a cost. A new study in England suggests that the same biological process that aids recall of emotional experiences also blocks memories of what happened just before those arousing occurrences took place.

This is important and can effect my work a lot. The event which happen before an hightened emotions is blocked to create a more intence memory. When i first did my burst shot experiments i wanted to progess further by starting lifting frames out of the animation and seeing what effect that has on the piece and how people would precive this.

I have found a second piece of text which talks about an experiment in which women are twice as likely for forget memory after an emotional event, again taken from http://sciencenewsmagazine.org/articles/20031108/fob5.asp

Overall, men and women recalled the emotional words much more often than they did the neutral words. Moreover, the poorest memory occurred for neutral words that were presented immediately before the disturbing words. Women forgot those words twice as often as men did.

By learning about emotions of memory I have wondered what would the effect be if drugs are used to not aid or paralize the memory from working like I have previously looked into but if the emotions are block, which would then effect memory.

Emotions in memory seams to be a double edges sword, you get a stronger memory of the emotional event but what happened before is usualy a blur or forgot all together at the expence of a highted memory.

Image taken from http://www.deltaflow.com/?p=402

On this blog I have found a pill which claims can remove memories, but I have decided to make a new post for this as it is seperate from emotions of memory although it links into it.

The Brain and Memory

2007-12-04T06:01:00.000-08:00

image taken from http://www.ahaf.org/alzdis/about/brain_headBorder.jpg

Data also taken from http://www.ahaf.org/alzdis/about/brain_headBorder.jpg

The image on the left is the outside of the brain, viewed from the side, showing the major lobes (frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital) and the brain stem structures (pons, medulla oblongata, and cerebellum).

The image on the right is a side-view showing the location of the limbic system inside the brain. The limbic system consists of a number of structures, including the fornix, hippocampus, cingulate gyrus, amygdala, the parahippocampal gyrus and parts of the thalamus.The hippocampus is one of the first areas affected by Alzheimer's disease. As the disease progresses, damage extends throughout the lobes.

There are 3 areas of the brain which are

Amygdala – limbic structure involved in many brain functions, including emotion, learning and memory. It is part of a system that processes "reflexive" emotions like fear and anxiety.

Limbic system – a group of interconnected structures that mediate emotions, learning and memory.

Temporal lobe – processes hearing, memory and language functions.

I found some artical at http://biology.about.com/b/2004/12/09/brain-anatomy-hippocampus.htm

which tells us that the hippocampus is the part of the brain that is involved in memory forming, organizing, and storing. It is particularly important in forming new memories and connecting emotions and senses, such as smell and sound, to memories.

This makes me question the integrity of the other site so I need to find some more evidence. What is the hippocampus?

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampus
The hippocampus is a part of the forebrain, located in the medial temporal lobe. It forms a part of the limbic system and plays a part in long term memory and spatial navigation. Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, one in each side of the brain.
The name derives from its curved shape in coronal sections of the brain, which resembles a seahorse (Greek: hippos = horse, kampi = curve).

I have found out that it is just part of the Limbic System which is explained above. It was just a more accurate description of which part of the system focuses on memory. The hippocampus is still yet to be fully understood and we are unsure of its precise role.

Damage to the hippocampus usually results in profound difficulties in forming new memories (anterograde amnesia), and normally also affects access to memories prior to the damage (retrograde amnesia). Although the retrograde effect normally extends some years prior to the brain damage, in some cases older memories remain - this sparing of older memories leads to the idea that consolidation over time involves the transfer of memories out of the hippocampus to other parts of the brain.

I read this further down on wiki which tells us that this part of the brain has been seen to form new memories and not recall them. If this part of the brain is damaged it leads to new memories from being created. Like in the movie I have reviewed '50 First Dates' the main character can't form new memories after a day, this might have been due to damage in her hippocampus from a car accident.

London's taxi drivers must learn a large number of places — and know the most direct routes between them (they have to pass a strict test, The Knowledge, before being licensed to drive the famous black cabs). A study at University College London by Maguire, et al (2000) showed that part of the hippocampus is larger in taxi drivers than in the general public, and that more experienced drivers have bigger hippocampi.

I also found this quite interesting, that the hippocampi is larger in people who need to access large amounts of information on a regular basis, like a london taxi driver. I could use something like this in my work, maybe some style of photography showing the area of the brain enlarged, like a revirsed fish eye effect showing the center of the image to be large.

http://biology.about.com/library/organs/brain/blhippocam.htm
Here i found a little list in bullet form about the

Function:

* Consolidation of New Memories

* Emotions

* Navigation

* Spatial Orientation

Location:

* The hippocampus is a horseshoe shaped sheet of neurons located within the temporal lobes and adjacent to the amygdala.

Image taken from http://www.technovelgy.com/graphics/content/hippocampus.jpg

What is the Temporal Lobe?

The superior temporal gyrus includes an area (within the Sylvian fissure) where auditory signals from the cochlea (relayed via several subcortical nuclei) first reach the cerebral cortex. This part of the cortex (primary auditory cortex) is involved in hearing. Adjacent areas in the superior, posterior and lateral parts of the temporal lobes are involved in high-level auditory processing. In humans this includes speech, for which the left temporal lobe in particular seems to be specialized. Wernicke's area, which spans the region between temporal and parietal lobes, plays a key role (in tandem with Broca's area, which is in the frontal lobe). The functions of the left temporal lobe are not limited to low-level perception but extend to comprehension, naming, verbal memory and other language functions. Sound processing is controlled by the temporal lobes- in the Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area.

There is nothing much about memory and the temporal lobe on wiki accept it tells us that tghe fuctions of the left side are linked with verbal memory and language. There is another parag

The medial temporal lobes (near the Sagittal plane that divides left and right cerebral hemispheres) are thought to be involved in episodic/declarative memory. Deep inside the medial temporal lobes, the hippocampi seem to be particularly important for memory function - particularly transference from short to long term memory and control of spatial memory and behavior.

This links into what i have already looked (the hippocampi) but i have found at that it is involed with episodic memory, which I previously looked at in LTM (long term memory) post.

What is the amygdalae?
(taken from wiki)

The amygdalae are almond-shaped groups of neurons located deep within the medial temporal lobes of the brain in complex vertebrates, including humans. Shown in research to perform a primary role in the processing and memory of emotional reactions, the amygdalae are considered part of the limbic system.

The amygdalae also are involved in the modulation of memory consolidation. Following any learning event, the long-term memory for the event is not instantaneously formed. Rather, information regarding the event is slowly assimilated into long-term storage over time, a process referred to as memory consolidation.

During the consolidation period, the memory can be modulated. In particular, it appears that emotional arousal following the learning event influences the strength of the subsequent memory for that event. Greater emotional arousal following a learning event enhances a person's retention of that event. Experiments have shown that administration of stress hormones to mice immediately after they learn something enhances their retention when they are tested two days later.

I find this really intesting, i know that emotions enchanced memory. As a widely used example a lot of people have a stong memory of 9/11 when the twin towers fell. People can tell you where they where and what they were doing, even what they were wearing or eating when the event happened. This is due to an emotion repsonse enhancing the memory. Looking at the encahncement of memory is just another area I have overlooked untill now but could go onto my research list to look further into it.

The amygdalae, especially the basolateral nuclei, are involved in mediating the effects of emotional arousal on the strength of the memory for the event, as shown by many laboratories including that of James McGaugh. These laboratories have trained animals on a variety of learning tasks and found that drugs injected into the amygdala after training affect the animals' subsequent retention of the task. These tasks include basic classical conditioning tasks such as inhibitory avoidance, where a rat learns to associate a mild footshock with a particular compartment of an apparatus, and more complex tasks such as spatial or cued water maze, where a rat learns to swim to a platform to escape the water. If a drug that activates the amygdalae is injected into the amygdalae, the animals had better memory for the training in the task. If a drug that inactivates the amygdalae is injected, the animals had impaired memory for the task.

I find this VERY intresting, the fact that taking drugs can enhance your memory. I dont know the side effects of the drug but to me it seams like an amazing idea to use it. I can think of many purposes where lives could be saved if the drug was used with teaching, an example would be the training of soldiers or even more so people within the medical profession to help them have a better memory of the tasks they were to perform. Children in school would have better memories of there teaching, surly allowing faster advancement.

Evidence from work with humans indicates that the amygdala plays a similar role. Amygdala activity at the time of encoding information correlates with retention for that information. However, this correlation depends on the relative "emotionalness" of the information. More emotionally-arousing information increases amygdalar activity, and that activity correlates with retention.

Memory Model

2007-11-29T10:11:00.000-08:00

This is a memory model taken from http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/cs6751_97_winter/Topics/human-cap/memory.html

It shows the differant stages for creating and storing memories with the fastest decaying on the left and the more perminant on the right. To explain the flow, information enters as a sensory memory based on the attention span. Things chosen from an intrest or something which is not the norm is coded into the STM or working memory. Things that are or importants then get encoded again to form LTM which have 3 stages, at seperate areas of the brain. Rehearsal of STM will keep the memory active for longer than 30 seconds be it needs to have attention. Constant rehearsal will allow the information to encoded into LTM so that it can retreved again at some point in time. As an example an actor learning there lines.

Classification of Memory - Short Term Memory and Long Term Memory

2007-11-29T06:55:00.000-08:00

Here is the medical term for STM (Short Term Memory)
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=7142

Short-term memory: A system for temporarily storing and managing information required to carry out complex cognitive tasks such as learning, reasoning, and comprehension. Short-term memory is involved in the selection, initiation, and termination of information-processing functions such as encoding, storing, and retrieving data.

One test of short-term memory is memory span, the number of items, usually words or numbers, that a person can hold onto and recall. In a typical test of memory span, an examiner reads a list of random numbers aloud at about the rate of one number per second. At the end of a sequence, the person being tested is asked to recall the items in order. The average memory span for normal adults is 7.

Short-term memory is also termed recent or working memory.

Visual STM information taken from wiki

In the study of vision, visual short-term memory (VSTM) is one of three broad memory systems including iconic memory and long-term memory. VSTM is a type of short-term memory, but one limited to information within the visual domain.

The term VSTM refers in a theory-neutral manner to the non-permanent storage of visual information over an extended period of time. The Visuospatial Sketchpad is a VSTM subcomponent within the theoretical model of working memory proposed by Alan Baddeley.

Whereas iconic memories are fragile, decay rapidly, and are unable to be actively maintained, visual short-term memories are robust to subsequent stimuli and last over many seconds.

I like the last part where it uses words like fragile and decay to create a visual picture of how memories are perceived.

Like fragile old photos which are decaying because paper doesn't last forever. Further down the page I found a little paragraph about color and memory.

If observers are asked to report on the quality (e.g., color) of an item stored in memory, while performance might be perfect when only a few items are encoded (the number of items that can be perfectly encoded varies depending on the attribute being encoded, but is usually less than five), after which performance invariably declines in a monotonic fashion as more items are added. Different theoretical models have been put forward to explain this decline in performance.

Basically the accuracy of the information is relational and effected by the number of items that need to be remembered. There are different modes all which come to fact that short term memory can only home so many items of information, this is expected to be around 3 to 5 due to experiments.

taken from http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761578303_1/Memory_(psychology).html

Working memory capacity is correlated with intelligence (as measured by intelligence tests). This correlation has led some psychologists to argue that working memory abilities are essentially those that underlie general intelligence. The more capacity people have to hold information in mind while they think, the more intelligent they are. In addition, research suggests that there are different types of working memory. For example, the ability to hold visual images in mind seems independent from the ability to retain verbal information.

Here it talks about how intelligence of effect by memory and it’s the first time I have come across inteligent's and memory in my research. Its basically saying that inteligent’s effects how much memory you can hold. It also states something which I have already looked into and seams to becoming an underlying theme that, visual memory and audio memory are different from each other and have different properties.

I read on another wiki page about the length of STM storage

The most important characteristic of a short-term store is, clearly, that it is short-term — that is, it retains information for a limited amount of time only. Most definitions of short-term memory limit the duration of storage to less than a minute; no more than about 30 seconds, and in some models as little as 2 seconds. Memory that exceeds short-term memory duration limits is known as long-term memory.

In order to overcome the limitation of short-term memory, and retain information for longer, information must be periodically repeated, or rehearsed — either by articulating it out loud, or by mentally simulating such articulation. In this way, the information will re-enter the short-term store and be retained for a further period. The process of consolidation (transfer of short-term memory to long term memory) is enhanced by the relationship, if any, of an item of short-term memory to an item in long-term memory (for example, if a sensory short-term event is linked to a trauma already in long-term memory).

Again I have already looked at this in little detail. To keep something in the STM it needs to be rehearsed so that it will stay in the STM for usage, example like before a number. I would like to explore some ideas with visual STM and how I can show this form or reparation so that an image will stay clear. Using techniques like blurring and re-tracing old lines would be a good visual start in my opinion. I’m current researching films which have an underlying theme of memory and/or identity and writing up my idea about the film in a review form. A film called 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' showed some amazing interesting ideas which I had already thought about before I had seen the film. One was the use of blurring a face from which someone’s identity is removed because the memory can't be converted from the LTM into the STM. In the case of this film they were delegating the memories from his brain, thus he was unable to recall the memories from his LTM to his STM because they had disappeared.

I realized a lot the research I’m blogging is text heavy and a lot of my visual research is coming from films I’m watching. I later will need to look at artists who use memory as a key concept for their ideas.

Here is quick visualization of an idea I had which links in the idea of computer memory waiting to be downloaded. It looks at the breaking down of the transferring of LTM to STM. Although it might not be a total breakdown it is the waiting to remember. Just like a web browser that is waiting for the information to be downloaded from the server.

My sister is at York University and she had looked at STM and LTM in her psycology work. After asking her for some idvice she sent me a table which helps show the differance between the two.

	Capacity	Duration	Encoding
S	Miller’s	Brown & Peterson suggest 15 to 30 seconds	Conrad suggested only acoustic process. Shulman suggested also visual and semantic processes.
T	7 +/- 2 Chunks
M	The magical number seven plus or minus two.
L T M	Unknown and impossible to measure. Maybe limitless.	Relatively permanent. Relates to theories of recall and forgetting.	Declarative and/or Procedural. Declarative may be Semantic and/or Episodic (Tulvig). Baddeley showed process was largely semantic

Long-term memory (LTM) is memory, stored as meaning, that can last as little as 30 seconds or as long as decades. It differs structurally and functionally from working memory or short-term memory, which ostensibly stores items for only around 30 seconds. Biologically, short-term memory is a temporary potentiation of neural connections that can become long-term memory through the process of rehearsal and meaningful association. The proposed mechanism by which short-term memories move into LTM storage is via long-term potentiation, which leads to a physical change in the structure of neurons. Notably, the time scale involved at each level of memory processing remains under investigation.

As long-term memory is subject to fading in the natural forgetting process, several recalls/retrievals of memory may be needed for long-term memories to last for years, dependent also on the depth of processing. Individual retrievals can take place in increasing intervals in accordance with the principle of spaced repetition. This can happen quite naturally through reflection or deliberate recall, often dependent on the perceived importance of the material.

The last part interests me, as I would like to explore the loss of memory in my work. Natural forgetfulness is talked about here. Here it’s describing how important personal information is recalled often.

LTM is divided into 3 sections. These are Episodic Memory, Semantic Memory and Procedural Memory.

1. Declarative memory refers to all memories that are consciously available. These are encoded by the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, and perirhinal cortex, but consolidated and stored elsewhere in the cortex. The precise location of storage is unknown, but the temporal cortex has been proposed as a likely candidate. Declarative memory also has two major subdivisions:
* Episodic memory refers to memory for specific events in time
* Semantic memory refers to knowledge about the external world, such as the function of a pencil.
2. Procedural memory refers to the use of objects or movements of the body, such as how exactly to use a pencil or ride a bicycle. This type of memory is encoded and probably stored by the cerebellum and the striatum.

There is an amazing documentary called 'Unknown White Male' about a man who wakes up on a train and has lost his episodic memory. He doesn't know where or who he is, what his job is, who his family and friends are. He still retains the semantic and procedural memory so he able to perform tasks and know how things act and how things work, so for example he still remember how to talk. I will right a film review about this once I have re-watched this and taken notes about certain areas of interest.

So where now?

Now that I know each area of memory I need to look at how they all work together. Looking at memory models should help me get a better understanding of how memories are created and stored via the 3 classifications of memory.

Classification of Memory - Sensory Memory

2007-11-29T05:18:00.000-08:00

Sensory Memory usually only lasts a second and at the very most it lasts two seconds. It has a very short life, and the brain chooses to discard most of the information that is in our sensory memory. Attention is what causes our brain to change this sensory memory into STM (short term memory). When we have an attention to something it becomes more relevant and we used it in our STM's

This is taken from wiki and explains one of the first experiments into discovering sensory memory

One of the earliest investigations into this phenomenon was in 1740 by Johann Andreas Segner(1704 - 1777) the German physicist and mathematician. In an experiment Segner attached a glowing coal to a cartwheel and rotated the wheel at increasing speed until an unbroken circle of light was perceived by the observer. He calculated that the glowing coal needed to make a complete circle in under 100ms to achieve this effect.

Examples of sensory memory was found at http://library.thinkquest.org/C0110291/basic/brain/sensory.php

You lose concentration in class during a lecture. Suddenly you hear a significant word and return your focus to the lecture. You should be able to remember what was said just before the key word since it is in your sensory register.

Your ability to see motion can be attributed to sensory memory. An image previously seen must be stored long enough to compare to the new image. Visual processing in the brain works like watching a cartoon -- you see one frame at a time.

If someone is reading to you, you must be able to remember the words at the beginning of a sentence in order to understand the sentence as a whole. These words are held in a relatively unprocessed sensory memory.

I find the second statement VERY helpful, and it relates to my initial idea of using burst frame animation. The fact the we process 'a frame' at a time, almost like watching a cartoon is something I need to look into more to produce ideas. This statement will help for the visual style I will be looking to use, but will have little to do with the actually content, only the way it would be presented.

If I create a video piece of work it will need to be complemented with audio and looking into how the brain processes sounds is also useful. The way you remember a second before the word that caught your attention is important for this.

It’s interesting its almost like memory is in blocks and is something that wanted to be remembered the whole block is then transferred into the STM. You can’t single out the one sound that got your attention. It seems to be more time based.

This is all in terms of short memory in relation to sensory memory. LTM (long term memory) is a little different.

Different stimuli have different durations. Also take from the same site explains these 2.

Your brain can take in a lot of information fairly accurately, but this information is not processed much at all, and it does not remain in sensory memory very long. Exactly how long information can be stored in sensory memory differs according to source of the sensory information being remembered:

iconic memory (visual sensory memory) - less than one second
echoic memory (auditory sensory memory) - less than four seconds

This is information is useful because it shows that different stimuli had a duration. If I was to make an Audio and Visual piece of work, I could use this to help me get across the idea of memory.

If for a moment the person was to record their sensory information into a way it could be recorded permanently, for others to see. As an example the one second of information in the sensory image is photographed, and then the audio is played over the top of the image with 3 seconds of audio left playing in the dark. I have written this idea into my notebook with examples and sketches of how it could look as in installation piece of work. I have also looked at how 1 second is perceived e.g. frame rate (30 images to show the motion of a 1 second image)

What happens next?

Our brain must quickly decide what information will be processed enough to remain in short term memory and what information will be discarded. Less than 99 percent of sensory information is passed on to short term memory. Two encoding processes by which we transfer information from sensory to short term memory are selective attention and feature extraction.

Selective attention occurs when we notice important information necessary to meet our basic needs or our own interests.

Feature extraction would be observing things as unusual, or "out of the ordinary."

From here I have learnt that attention is what causes the transferring of sensory memory into STM. Depending on what our brains need and weather something is not the norm.

There is a really interesting part of this website which explains an effect of sensory memory

Instructions: Hold your hand up in front of your face and wave it up and down.

Questions: What do you observe? Is this different from what you expected? If so, how?

Discussion: You are able to see where your hand was before you moved it, so it looks like you have more than five fingers. Your eyes are taking in the new image of where the hand has moved to while your visual sensory memory allows you to still see where the hand was just an instant before.

The ability to see where something has just been is from sensory memory. Sensory memory only lasts a few seconds but it allows us to see where something has just been by remembering it.

I ask myself the question does this mean we are looking into the past? Or simple remembering the past as it was just a second ago.

The memory is as strong as it has just happened that nothing can confuse is. With long-term memory we might forget certain colours or objects as we might be recalling from an event that happened a long time ago.

From this site http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/learning/memory.html

It briefly talks about working memory were the repetition of something keeps it in our memory for use. We might not always remember the number to help is to not forget it is kept at to our attention by repletion. An example of this would be to remember a phone number. By repeating the numbers it almost (and I use the word lightly) 'refreshes' the information.

The site also references the human brain to artificial memory. It also links the way human memory is in blocks like I previously said.

Works like RAM memory in computers; provides a working space. Is thought to be 7 bits in length, that is, we normally only remember 7 items. STM is vulnerable to interruption or interference.

I found some more information which re-touches on the previous research of recalling information from sensory memory. Taken directly from http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761578303/Memory_(psychology).html

American psychologist George Sperling demonstrated the existence of sensory memory in an experiment in 1960. Sperling asked subjects in the experiment to look at a blank screen. Then he flashed an array of 12 letters on the screen for one-twentieth of a second, arranged in the following pattern:

Subjects were then asked to recall as many letters from the image as they could. Most could only recall four or five letters accurately. Subjects knew they had seen more letters, but they were unable to name them. Sperling hypothesized that the entire letter-array image registered briefly in sensory memory, but the image faded too quickly for subjects to “see” all the letters. To test this idea, he conducted another experiment in which he sounded a tone immediately after flashing the image on the screen. A high tone directed subjects to report the letters in the top row, a medium tone cued subjects to report the middle row, and a low tone directed subjects to report letters in the bottom row. Sperling found that subjects could accurately recall the letters in each row most of the time, no matter which row the tone specified. Thus, all of the letters were momentarily available in sensory memory.

I found this interesting because it shows a link between the audio and the visual. The audio helped people to remember the visual. This is an interesting idea which I could create a piece of work showing the effects of audio on an image. The audio would directly affect what parts of the image is visible and the duration of image.

Classification of Memory - Overview

2007-11-27T09:07:00.000-08:00

There are three classifications of memory. Two of them are known as general knowledge. These are Short Term Memory and Long Term Memory. The other less known is the sensory memory.

Wiki has good definitions of all three of these classifications. So i will just para-phase these rather than to copy and paste.

Sensory Memory
This is a very fast responce (200-500 milliseconds) from when an object is perceiced. If you look at an object or item for a second, we have the ability to remember the object after only a second, this is an example of sensory memory. The brain has a average capacity to remember 12 objects, this was proved by George Sperling's experiments. Sensory memory acuracy is lost very quickly and over time mostly altogether. Another thing about sensory memory is that practice does not improve the memory, like a actor practicing their lines for a better performance (not forgeting lines).

Short Term Memory
This is when some of the sensory memory is changed into STM (short term memory). STM allows one to recall something from several seconds to as long as a minute without rehearsal. STM is believed to rely mostly on an acoustic code for storing information, and to a lesser extent a visual code.

Long Term Memory
Sensory and STM have a a limited duration along with capacity. LTM (long term memory) can store larger amouts of information for what has been discribed as an unlimited duration (a whole life) . Studies have shown that sleep helps improve LTM as it helps to consolidate information. Repetition helps to change information such a set of digits (STM) into telephone number (LTM)

Two things I have found very interesting here is that sleep helps the storage of information by consolidating. I think there are alot of potential ideas here were lack of sleep could show memory loss. I could explore the dream world as part of this. There is an amazing film i recently watched called 'The Science of Sleep' which explores dream states. I this things happen in the real world as he is dreaming, but when he wakes up he is sometimes unsure of what is or isn't the truth. He cant quite remember if what happened did happen.

taken from www.allocine.co.uk

Another thing I thought was interesting was this idea of repertition in order to remember something. I thought about graffitti to be honest when I read this. The idea that someone 'bombs the system' with there personal tag as so many people see it many times. The tagger would then hold this to be imbedded in the minds of the viewers.

taken from a graffiti movie called 'Friendly Fire 2'

Processes of Memory

2007-11-27T08:32:00.000-08:00

Ok there are three main stages in the formation and retrieval of memory. These are

registration which is processing and combining of information to form a memory.
storage which creates a record of the registrated memory from stage one.
retreval which is calling back the stored information for use.

taken from wiki

List of Research Topics to possiably look into

2007-11-27T07:32:00.000-08:00

Processes of Memory

Classification of Memory

Models of Memory

Areas / Anatomy of the Brain

Emotions of Memory

Memory Dissorders / Illnesses

Artifical Memory

Religion and Memory

Icons of Memory (goldfish and elephants)

False/Fake Memory

Memory and Learning

Subliminal/Involuntary Memory

Photography / Visual and Total Recall Memory

Alcohol Effects on Memory

Wiki

2007-11-27T04:59:00.001-08:00

as with most things these days wiki seams to be one of the first places i go for fast, reliable and accurate information about a certain topic. Naturaly in my research this was the first place I will visit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory

"memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and subsequently retrieve information"

From reading wiki i first found out that there are differant types of memory. These are clasifide by how people duration, nature, and retreval of information.

There is also short term memory and long term memory. Looking at these 2 along i could generate some ideas on how to express the loss, and/or regaining of these memories, although further research must be done.

There are differant models of how memory works by differant psychologists.

Memory can also be classified by information types or temporal direction.

Looking at the referances theres a book by Marcel Proust in which memory is explore i would like to have a quick look at that. Ill have to check the uni libary. Theres the film 'Momento' which i have already written about. Also there also a film ref 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind '. 'Strange Days' is another film i would like to check out which looks at memory.

There are also deseases which effect memory. Some of these could be intresting and i would like to look further into these.

I have found out that there are differant methords of memory some afew differant from others but have the same key ideas behind them. Differant people have there own ideas, and it seams that there is no definitive methord of explaining memory as there are differant theroys.

From here i think it would be wise to re-create a list of tasks which focus down into certain aspects from the wiki site. Looking at the differant theroy's, illnesses, films to watch and book(s) to read.

In my own words: Memory is the ability to recall upon something which was previously done. If you look at the foam on a bed mattress, it is said to have memory as when you take off pressure it 'remembers' where it was before. Similarly with plasics which have said to have 'memory' when bent to acceptable levels and let go they return to there remembered state.

I would also like to explore my own memory, with the help of my sister, whos a pycologist at york university. She has written about her old childhood memories and could help me explore my own memory. I would also like to look at other peoples memories. There favories and least memories. A questionaire would be the best way of collecting this.

There is also a emotional responce to memories which i dont think wiki really touched upon so i would like to explore this too.

Movie List to watch

2007-11-27T04:44:00.000-08:00

From doing about 3 hours quick research at uni i was able to find afew videos mostly online to watch which used a style of stop motion or burst shot. Others are blockbuster films which i have still yet to see which explore themes of memory. Here is the list

12 Monkeys

Between You And Me

Copy Shop

Das Clown

Dead Skunk

Fast Film

Fight Club

Gattaca

La Jetée

Le Souvenir D'un Avenir

Memento

Minority Report

Mise eEn Abyme

Soaked Down

The Island

The Miser Movie

Unknown White Male

Review Outcome

2007-11-27T03:36:00.000-08:00

On wednesday i had a review in which i was able to speak to 2 very helpful people (jen and tom). As i was having problems with my ideas, the review was vital to the progression of my work. I decided to show them this blog and work down through my ideas. After i presented they looked through the notes and picked apart every idea.

The ides i presented were said to be very formal, and focused on the technical side. This was no good as there needed to be some personality in my work and also some core meaning.

What is the point in created a exif data visulisation when after its not doing anything. The end result is a image and thats it. This is not what they wanted to hear. The only idea they really picked up on was the burst shot idea, which would explored memory as a core concept. The proplem was that they were still alittle unsure about why i chose to use a burst shot technique. I explaned it was to help show memory and then to later pull out and mess around with frames.

I was told to watch - Minority Report (for a concept from another idea - 'idenity on the internet)
- La Jetée (a french movie made up from just stills)

From here i was very greatful that i had a path to then follow and explore around. I would like to look at memory and in perticular human memory (an organic methord in psycology).
From this i can start to create some more ideas with a personal meaning rather than just looking at the techonologies of the ideas.

IDEA 6 - a room with a blur

2007-11-20T15:56:00.000-08:00

http://www.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/exh_detail.php?id=162

When you enter a new room you are
under a whole new experience with your
eyes open you are absorbing everything
around you.

My idea is inspired from piece of work by
a Japanese artist called
“Takashi Murakami”

His piece explores how you observe a
room when you first enter and flips the
experience back onto you as you’re the one
being looked at, rather than you looking at the room. The work is in a unique style which would be very different from my own.

My idea is to create and interactive installation which explore how an image blurs, and your
relationship to this blurred image. The idea came from my experiences of lomography and how images are not always perfect.

The idea was to have a large projection with an image being projected onto the wall. Could even be from a webcam sat looking at the people viewing the screen. Based on how far the person is away from the projected image would be how blurred the image displays. The closer the person gets the sharper the images gets but because they get so close the image then fragments into pixels and the image is never seen as it was intended.

It changes the expectations on the viewer of what a perfect image it. Some might find the blurred image beautiful and would be happy to watch as it changes via the webcam feeding it data. Others would want to control the image once they find out they can control the sharpness. Frustration would set in as they discover they are not totally in-control, or they will never see the image. Others might decide that the installation is “broken” and not working as it should.

I think an installation of this nature needs to be researched properly to see if anything has been done like this before. Experiments would need to be made about how to go about censoring the viewer, and problems which arise. One problem instantly visible is that if there is more than one viewer which should it track do set the blur, only research could solve this problem. Technologies would also need to be explored; phidgets is one possibility which can be used with a number of programs such as PHP or most likely MAX.

IDEA 5 - exif data creates and image from an image

2007-11-20T14:57:00.000-08:00

Everytime you press that shutter button on the digital camera, data is instanly stamped onto that image reminding the author of how that image was taken. Each detail is recorded the second that the light is read. The file is output as “Exchangeable image file format” or .exif for short.

Data is sorted as a table with the “tag” and then the “value”. Here are afew examples of the tags which store the data of the image.

http://www.smallbluesphere.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/02/sandTraveler1.jpgManufacturer, Model, Compression, Exposure Time, FNumber, Date and Time (original), Metering Mode, Flash, Focal Length.

Each of these will have differant data on each image. Some could be the same, such as FNumber but others such as focal length could have large veriances.

Using the data from exif files i would like to crate a generative visual piece of work. I would created the visualization in flash action scripted or more likely in processing (java environment).

Research is needed into how the exif data veries and how this might effect the outcome of a generated imaged in processing. I would also need to find a way of importing the data. Flickr.com manages to pull out exif data for display to i could use PHP inside processing to get this data, for another possabilty would be to use a processing libary which might have already been made, I know there has already been an MP3 ID Tag created.

IDEA 4 - reality controling a virtual environment

2007-11-20T13:07:00.000-08:00

Playing games and video / computer game espeicialy are a form of escapistm. They allow the players to interact with a world which is at a far reach or most likly a fictional world. Game allow for involving, exicing narrative similar to film. The add an added layer of interaction which you dont get from film. The ability to chose to kill someone is a factor that many people choose to play a game, especialy with teenage boys. They allow things which are just not possiable in this world.

I would like to explore what happends if you bridge the gap between the real world and inside a game.

What if YOU are the game?

You can still escape the world as an envirnoment but you cant escaple who you are. If you are unfit, you are unfit in the game. You are who you are.

This has been done before. One example was someone monitored themselves for a day or a week and then the data collected controlled the stats of a character in a game called ‘Morrowind’ a role playing game which revolves around the status of the players character.

Rather than just simply copying this idea and adding my own twist or using a differant game I would like to find a new usage. I decided to say virtual environment instead of game because I feel that there are alot more other uses than just gaming.

dating
communications
fun
meetings eg hobbie meatings

Instead of a gaming environment I would like to design a social usage for using real world data to effect how a virtual character acts or looks. I would like to explore how people hide their real selves on the internet. There have been previous projects which explore this, one spings to mind which took myspace and twisted it to show how people lie about themselfs.

Im not sure how sucessful this could be as people like to use the internet to hide from there real selves. Further research would help to work out what users would want from an idea like this.

IDEA 3 - short film exploring memory using burst shot

2007-11-20T12:29:00.000-08:00

A Short Film Exploring Memory Using Burst Shot

Memory is an individual experience, absorption of senses, in their intiratory or singular. A person might just remember an image, or in fact the smells, sounds, feeling and even tastes. One person’s experiences of a same event are different to another’s of the exact same event.

I would like to explore these ideas of memory and create a piece of video which explores a narrative from two or more people’s memories.

How are they the same?
What are the main differences between the two narratives?
What really happened?
Who was right or closest?
What effected people’s memories?

I could use wall mounted CCTV for what actually happened VS the memories, but use twists in the story. As an example the end could shot someone slicing up video to create a distorted reality of events. This would leave the viewer confused as to what actually reality, if there even was a true reality. Studies have shown that when powerful moving events occur memories are strongly
Remembered to the reality.

In a world where we are constantly under surveillance so we need a memory?

A common example is of the twin towers collapse, people were able to give very strong recollections from years ago about what they ate that morning, what they were doing, what they were wearing ect, but they couldn’t remember what they had for breakfast 2 mornings ago.

I have seen a style which uses photography to create film. I would like to try frame by fame
Photography to create an animation. I think this will be fun to play around with the idea of
fragmented memory in a very fragmented way. Choosing to slice out, or edit certain frame(s) to show the view how a person perceives memories. I explored this in my first year but I wasn’t very satisfied with the results. I used a similar method, which I now realize was a wrong idea.

The following part of the blog is not from my PDF sketchbook...

After looking into this idea more i decided to do afew experiments using my nikon SLR with a f1.8 50mm lens and a f3.5 18mm wideangle lens i was able to create two compositions which explored some of the basic ideas which i wanted to use if i did decided to go head with this as a final inital idea.

I have uploaded them onto youtube.
They have no audio as they were just shot on a bust mode i did 3fps so every second of motions has only 3 frames but i then rendered the animaion out as 12fps, which gave the desired speed i wanted.

I quickly sketchout out a basic narrative into my notbook with ideas of camera angles. Once i had done this i had to sort out some lighting for the lens as too low of a shutter speed would cause too much bluring.

I wanted to use something which was very basic and put a differant outlook onto how something is done. I wasn't focusing on the ideas of memories like in my idea, more of how i could relate this too my main theme of photograph and the techniques of how it is done. This helpped me get an idea on time management for the rest of the year.

If i made it for a final piece of work it would need to add sound. The lighting, angles and photographic style would be compleatly re-designed based on the themes of the narrative which itself would be far more complex than just making a cup of tea.

here are the two videos i created.

Make Tea not War

How to Make Pizza

I used a Nikon D80 on burst mode to create these effects. Chosing angles then setting lighting after the angle was set. The first video consisted of about 200 shots. The latter had 800+. I then took each image into Adobe Lightroom a image editing softwear and set the style i was going for.

In the first video i wanted to explore a lomographic style using a digital vignetting and a slightly boosted level of vibrance although the lighting used was very vibrant.

The second video i wanted to take out the colour information to see how this would effect the lighting, and the food. I think this added more texture and lighting atmosphere, but the apeal of the food was lost.

IDEA 2 - photographic narrative and inspiration

2007-11-20T12:25:00.000-08:00

Photographic Narrative and Inspiration

As a photographer I sometimes find it hard to think of fresh ideas. Everyone is like this at some point in their creative journeys and anyone who says they don’t it lying. People can share photographs at ease in this digital age. Online website spring up all over the place, offering a place to store, share, communicate, buy and sell their photographs. There are a lot of creative sites which people will give you feedback and inspiration on image you have created.

I intend to create a world online where people can share images, but with the purpose of create a narrative. Users can upload chose images, to start off a story, add to or complete stories.

Text will follow each image, with a word or phrase highlighted by the person who uploaded the image. Other users must then take an image relating to the word.

This allows for inspiration and guidance to people who are stuck with ideas, or just want to be
reative. They then follow up their own photograph with the next installment of the narrative. Highlighting a word or phrase which they have then created allows the further advancement of the narrative from other uses.

Depending on the creativity of the users, I believe that long in-depth stories could be created. Each story will have accompanying images and once a narrative is completed users could close the story and crate a video, or animate sequence of the story. The site could even allow for uploading of audio clips which users have created themselves, reading from the finished story.

Advancing ideas for the site could include a blog format. Members can read current stories, create narrative and even upload there images to the site from there camera phone, allowing creativity on the move.

IDEA 1 - analog film to a digital audio experiance

2007-11-20T12:04:00.000-08:00

This is my 1st idea taken stright out of my PDF i created afew weeks ago.

Analog Film to a Digital Audio Experiance

Imagine capturing an amazing image of the sun setting
behind cold desolate mountains.

That homeless guy you stealthfully managed to snap as
you are pulled past by the tide of daily commuters

The warm glowing lights of the life beyond daylight.

The place you snatched 10 minutes to relax and drink
a coffee before you rush away on business.

You friends drunk at that party last week.

All these images quite and suspended in a single frame which you chose. What sounds would those amazing yellows give? That deep blue from the sky? Those dark shadows cast from the natural light hitting the subjects face? Monotones from that street shot at that café? Lush fresh greens in the grass?

Photographs have no sounds. They are silent slices of captured time, segments of what a person wants to remember, cherish and hold onto. Slideshows present images in an order for a particular viewer, music chose by the creator.

What if photographs could speak for themselves?

What would they say and how would they want to say it?

My aim to create a interactive piece which will invite the user into using image which they have created in analog format, or most user friendly digital format.

Using create code the images will be read for colour
information and audio will then be created from the i
nformation collected. Most likely the audio will sound
randomized as the image colours are random. I will try find a way in which the image as a whole can be interpreted.

I will try use music theory to allow the sounds to work together creating audio which does not sound randomized. Use of scales would help to create music created from an image.

the start of something - Analoge Photography

2007-11-20T09:55:00.000-08:00

Within the 1st week at uni i was already personaly looking into photographic techniques. I already had sorted out some chemicals for developing known as C-41 a very popular set of chemicals/methord of developing colour negative film. I also got some bathing tanks, thermometer,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-41_process

Within the second week i knew that my dissertation was on lomography so i could start producing some images with my camera.

I have also spend close to £600 on camera equipment using ebay.co.uk

-LC-A
-FM2 Nikon Film SLR
-Lomo Fish Eye 2
-Nikon coolscan V

From here i was able to explore analogue photography for both my disseration, to allow me to understand the colour of lomography, but also to gain ideas for my studio work.

Working in analog format i have learnt that things are not always perfect but alot of the time its this characteristic which makes something beautiful about the image which is where some of my ideas began to develop from.

Here is a slide show of about 50 images (50 images on 20th novemember 2007) taken over the last 6 weeks.
I have used a range of cameras and they have all be developed using C-41 processes and digitaly scanned by myself.

cameras used are

WOCA-NF1 - which cost me £10 New from china off ebay.
Lomo Fish Eye 2 - bought off ebay New for £45, this gives a 170degree angle on life.
LC-A - i got this referbished off ebay for about £100 it was made in USSR in the 70's and has formed a cult following of people and a socity which has created a lifestyle and a movement in photography. My dissertation is currenly titleded "lomography and its cult following" BBC's lomography documentry helped me understand this cult so well.

Scanner used was a Canon Flatbed which has a medium performance, which made me decided to get the Nikon Coolscan V priced around £450 - 500, but non of the images were scanned using the new scanner.

I am still learning with film, it takes about an 40mins to develop each roll and then another hour or two to dry. Scanning take a following hour so its takes about 1hour 40mins to get 36 images. This is the down side to analoge as apose to digital where i could fire off 500 shots and copy them stright to the computer. An example of this is the burst shot idea i had and greated 2 small videos/animations.

Most of these shots are taken in a "lomo style" which i have been researching. The image quality is via the cameras, the scans are with no digital aids.

At a review 2 weeks ago my photo of a eastern kitchen was said to be

- blured
- a kitchen or bar
- looked digitaly edited

which is what i would like to look at in terms of how this style relates to digital photography

Here is slide show of my lomophotography.

A Kick Up My Own Backside - 1st Blog Post

2007-11-20T08:36:00.000-08:00

Ok so I have been in my final year for 7 weeks now (nearly 2 months)
I will admit that I am behind with my work already in the final year, due to lack of motivation and attendance to lessons. I have taken a serious step back this weekend to get some motivation to do work.

To help me get to grips with my work and truly focus I need to know what I have done so far in these 7 weeks to truly know where I am going.

I have created a large list of websites which have inspired me, about 100+ which is growing each day. These are all bookmarked on my delicious account.
http://del.icio.us/t0402648

I have created a few main ideas around certain areas of interest (I will blog these ideas later). These have already been made into PDF's for a digital sketchbook.

I have read a few books so far in the last few weeks for inspiration and ideas.

-Creative Code by John Maeda

-Analogue In Digital Out by Brendan Dawes

-Lomo Mauritius by Mauritius

-Don’t Think Just Shoot by Leningradskoye Optiko Mechanichesckoye Obyedinenie

-On Photography by Susan Sontag

-Processing by Casey Reas & Ben Fry

-The Medium Is The Message by Marshall McLuhan

Although some of these are for my dissertation I think that I was able to gather ideas from all these books.

I have a few solid ideas which I will pick to further progress. This will allow me to organise my time better and allow me to specialize my ongoing research.

My dissertation is linked into my final year project as expected so I also have a sister blog based on the topic for my dissertation which is lomography
I have 4 blogs

Personal Photography Blog: http://stimu1us.blogspot.com/

Lomography Blog: http://lomo-mojo.blogspot.com/

My old Uni Blog (which can be useful for past research): http://mmvr33.blogspot.com/

and this new blog!

I have decided to create this blog to help document the progression in ideas and technologies.
As I have already done a little bit of work I will need to blog all up 2nite.

I have written a list of task which is needed to be done by the end of week.
To help me manage my time better than the last 7 weeks I will start to write these lists on a regular basis.

By the end of tonight (20th November 2007) I would like to ...

-create a blog to which I can document all work online in the last 7 weeks

-blog all photos of the lomography work I have been exploring and creating

-blog the 5 or 6 initial ideas out of notebook and PDF's with supporting images

-write a final idea proposal with images to back up the final idea

-link burst shot experiments onto blog from YouTube (can be included in the initial ideas blog post)

-find a way of adding my java experiments from the processing development onto the blog

-Think of a title for final idea and possible if time generate some logos/themes for
the ongoing style of the project, e.g. for storyboards, sketchbooks, future website
and this blog