Technology and Memory

Technology and Memory

This article relates to The Memory of Animals

In her novel The Memory of Animals, author Claire Fuller features the use of a fictional device that allows people to revisit memories in vivid detail, as though physically embodying their past selves. Though this may sound like a radical concept existing firmly within the realms of science fiction, the use of technology to document memories — and in some cases even alter them — is, in a way, already very much a reality.

Wist is an app currently in its beta stage that can transform videos you have recorded on your phone into immersive experiences. By capturing and upscaling data related to color, depth and audio, the app can transform your footage from flat 2D visuals into 3D projections. Through the use of a virtual reality headset, these projections can then be displayed over your real surroundings, allowing you to feel that you're literally stepping inside the memories you caught on camera and exploring them up close from a new perspective.

HereAfter is an app that employs artificial intelligence (AI) to let users preserve their life stories to revisit or share with others in the future. The app presents you with hundreds of questions and prompts about yourself, your experiences and your thoughts. You speak your answers aloud so the app can record, organize and store your responses. As you build up a database of stories, the app produces, in effect, a virtual representation of your memories. This means you or your loved ones can pose questions about your life, and the app will be able to respond not only with your own words, but in your own voice. This could be particularly powerful for people with conditions like dementia, who wish to document their memories before they fade.

In March 2023, the Alamo Drafthouse theater in San Francisco hosted what is believed to be the first-ever AI film festival. The event showcased 10 short films made through the use of AI produced by a startup called Runway. The technology allows filmmakers to alter video footage and images with the use of text prompts. One such film was the work of 21-year-old student Sam Lawton. After compiling a series of photographs from throughout his own childhood, he instructed AI to alter them: expanding the images, adding extra details and inserting people into the frame who hadn't been present at the time. Once complete, he showed the images to his father and recorded his confused reactions, which served as the film's audio narration:

"No, that's not our house. Wow—wait a minute. That's our house. Something's wrong. I don't know what that is. Do I just not remember it?"

By blurring the line between fact and fiction, the project created fascinating insight into the way technology is opening up new methods of not only documenting memories, but changing them.

Even in our day-to-day lives, many of us scroll through social media streams of images that have been altered using photo editing and filters. Whether enhancing the lighting or masking a blemish or digitally erasing strangers from the background, people frequently adjust pictures in some capacity before sharing them. As such, while social media is a great example of technology that already allows us to capture, share and revisit specific moments in time, it's important to remember that the images we see are not simply snapshots of "real" memories, but rather curated and often idealized versions of them.

Indeed, just as Fuller explores in her fictional technology, the lure of happier times in the past can become addictive to users, making it increasingly difficult to remain in the present, and our current methods of preserving memories are not without their own potential downsides. As with all advancements in science and technology, social media, AI and any other forms of memory documentation will almost certainly be subject to increased study and moral debate.

Photo of man wearing virtual reality headset by Hammer & Tusk, via Unsplash

Filed under Medicine, Science and Tech

This "beyond the book article" relates to The Memory of Animals. It originally ran in August 2023 and has been updated for the June 2024 paperback edition. Go to magazine.

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