Preserved Memories

Preserved Memories was researched and developed as a technical concept during 2014 and the summer of 2015 while McKeown was a Reader in the School of Computing at Teesside University. During this period, he taught and undertook practice-based research into the technologies discussed, building labs and undertaking technical and creative research. Following preceding work with DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, (Prague, Czech Republic) McKeown discussed with the Director and Senior Programme Director their future exhibition plans. They outlined an exhibition which was to be based on a comparison of social models, as described by Aldous Huxley, George Orwell and Ray Bradbury, in their famous dystopic visions of the future. The exhibition plans sought to provoke discussion on contemporary art’s ability to engineer change beyond current technological parameters. McKeown was asked to consider presenting an artistic proposal for inclusion.  Following an appropriate period of reflection, he elected to present Preserved Memories which he later did in form of a schematic supported by personal and virtual discussion. Following the proposal period, the work was accepted and later invited to be part of the September 2015 Brave New World exhibition.

McKeown identified in his research the urgent need to formulate questions on death and remembrance in the hyper-digital age. The resulting research, in the form of an artwork entitled Preserved Memories, expanded on Steinhart (2014) to suggest that in the future individuals will digitally live on after their deaths as intelligent 3D forms.  

McKeown developed new knowledge to create public dialogue highlighting the exponential simplification and mechanisation of creative technologies capable of producing life-like emotional virtual avatars. Employing expertise in digital technology this research advances knowledge on the collaboration and collision of technologies to affect a new research paradigm of memory and death. It builds on a body of creative research by artists including Eric Fischer (data), Cirio and Ludovico (data) and Douglas Gordon (memory), along with engineers to raise complex ethical issues around technology and embodiment (More and Vita-More, 2013; Kurzweil, 1998; Hovagimyan, 2001) 2001).  Preserved Memories was informed by research into collective and digital memory (false, distorted, reused) (Halbwachs, 1992 [1925]; Goodman, 2010). Other critical concepts included studies of social media (Golbeck et al., 2011), Big Data (Andrejevic, 2014).

From this, a viable futuristic model of global processes was identified, around the individual vs virtual death, and notions of virtual family and friends impacting on ‘memory production’, in a process in which people never digitally die. This develops fields of analysis in multiple disciplines and discourses, including the ownership and control of memory and the benefits, consequences and cultural specificities of its use.

McKeown’s research resulted in a commissioned artwork, taking the form of a 4m x 3m computer game console advert, for the exhibition at DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague, where it was seen by a paying audience of 26,000 people. Testimony to its significance, the work sparked international media engagement with the research. 

Aesthetica Magazine selected Brave New World as a top 10 to See exhibition from around the world (Issue 66, August/September 2015).

Related Developments

Holographic Projection: In 2021 the company HYPERVSN presented Holographic Human, through which you can connect with your audience on a more personal level, increasing the impact of your marketing message. See https://hypervsn.com/holographic-human-for-purchase

Augmented Reality: In 2019  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in an interview discussing his work in virtual and augmented reality said:

"And one thing that we're very focused on is expressive emotional avatars and delivering that well. What do we need to deliver to deliver real presence? That's the big question for us. Other folks might be thinking about, OK, well, what can I make in glasses that would be useful? For us, it's the magical thing about AR and VR, compared to every other computing platform before, is that it actually could let you feel like you're there with a person that makes you feel more present, rather than pulling you away from people like we do with our phones and computers today. And to me, that's the holy grail of the mission of this company, making it so that you could be anywhere in the world, and you can feel present with people both for social, and for work." https://is.gd/Zz3tWF

Digital Grief: In 2020 a TV company South Korean Munhwa Broadcasting Corp ‘recreated’ a deceased young girl and reunited her with her mother in a live, virtual setting, using some of the methods and approaches set out by McKeown in 2015. In a clearly emotional project, we begin to see death considered in a way envisaged in Persevered Memories, and here virtually mitigated. This project similarly featured in news across the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p8HZVCZSkc

Moving Heritage: In 2021 Deep Nostalgia uses some of the technologies associated with Preserved Memories presenting a methodology that allows users to animate deceased relatives from static images. The user has an active part in assisting the AI system in completing the task, uploading still images of deceased relatives. The still image is then transformed as a moving image video in which the person, smiles and blinks. Whilst the animated image cannot talk, we get a sense of the action of reinvention, through the addition of motion to a still image, which when combined with older images of deceased people presents a powerful and ethically complex dynamic. Please see the following links: https://is.gd/2FxDAa and ow.ly/Forq50DLVtk. Deep Nostalgia is currently a user tool, offered by the family heritage company My Heritage.

Virtual lifelike humans: In 2021 the globally important computer game company Epic, and their Unreal Engine, one of the most advanced and popular game engines, provided a digital virtual solution to human presentation (which appears to avoid the Uncanny Valley) in the form of MetaHumans. a synthetic human character engine. This tool allows relatively simple creation and animation of digital hyperreal characters.  https://is.gd/V9e3lE

Deepfakes: In a broader sense the creative and technological advancements suggested by McKeown are already being used as evidence by the emergence of AI linked Deepfake videos which are creating political, emotional challenges, especially around the notions of Truth/Post Truth. Please see the highlighted 2019 CNN article for more detail. Currently complex deepfakes are difficult to achieve but this will change, as indicated by McKeown, as game engine, AI and human representation quantifiably improve (Moore’s Law extrapolated). Please see - https://is.gd/XxOh5V

Kardashian: Many of the ethical issues raised by the hologram of Robert Kardashian (and similarly Tupac) are addressed by McKeown in Preserved Memories. Kanye West gifted his wife Kim Kardashian a hologram of her deceased father Robert Kardashian, who when ‘resurrected’ talked about her present-day life. https://is.gd/PRkgif Please also see a similar fake of Tom Cruise: https://is.gd/43DYz1

Related Links:

Cirio and Ludovico -  https://is.gd/OZuWAs
Fischer - https://is.gd/LSHITi

Brave New World! (DOX Press release 2015)

Preserving a digital family for the future

An audience of 600 people attended the launch of an extensive Aldous Huxley inspired exhibition “Brave New World: A dismal future that has already arrived”  at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague, Czech Republic.

The works of over twenty artists from around the world who deal with topics such as surveillance, consumerism, and the world of the media bear the same warning message. Alas, they refer to a ‘dismal’ future that has already arrived.

The authors of Brave New World (1932), 1984 (1949), and Fahrenheit 451 (1953) wanted above all to galvanize readers and point out possible future threats. In his warning against the control of individuals based on psychological manipulation, fear, and a total absence of privacy, George Orwell presciently predicted the perfection of today’s surveillance systems. In the 1930s, Aldous Huxley saw a fundamental threat in technological intervention leading to the implementation of a social caste system, and in the 1950s, Ray Bradbury predicted the victory of a superficial mass media culture over a society that recognizes the value of books.

British artist Simon Mckeown’s conceptual work visualises how in the future Big Data streams can be (mis)used to create synthetic digital life. As a forward thinking artist he is looking to the future and creating opportunities to bring deceased family members back to ‘virtual’ life through digital technology and social media activity.

Have you ever wanted to chat with your great grandmother or ask her life advice?

McKeown’s ‘Preserved Memories’ proposes that in the future you will be reconstitute your reality so that you never have to permanently say goodbye to a loved one again.

‘Preserved Memories’ suggests that by combining state-of-the-art gaming technology, voice synthesis and Big Data streams – such as social media, government databases and health records – we will be able create a synthetic digital life which you will recognise and which will recognise you.

In 50 years’ time this system will be seen as similar to an Xbox or Playstation and is the brainchild of Simon, a Reader in Animation and Post Production at Teesside University.

‘Preserved Memories’ uses a process called ‘photogrammetry’ where you can accurately reconstruct a virtual 3D shape of a human being from existing photographs and video. In addition, the advancement in computer voice synthesis, will also take into account local and regional accents and deliver a more personalised, human experience. When you link these virtual humans to Big Data streams the system will create a digital lifeform which is up to date and informed about your activities. You’ve been shopping or to the doctors! The virtual character will already know.

Simon said: “In the future with “Preserved Memories”, you will never have to experience the loss of a loved one. You will be able to add to your family tree and select new family members, including famous faces and legends, all of whom will already know about you.

Using emotion-sensitive human-computer interaction artificially intelligent participants continue to acquire ongoing knowledge long after their death - they evolve digitally and do not die.”

“This life form will be up to date and informed of your daily activities through GPS, Wifi, health and fitness tracking, consumer records and much more. They will know if you have passed your exam, driving test, flown on holiday, bought new shoes, ditched your boyfriend. They will know what you tell it on social media and also by the constant tracking that occurs every day.

Locations will recreated, using technology from game engines, mapped against GPS and other historic data such as the weather. For instance it snowed in Rome on the 23rd of August 2020 and your deceased uncle was nearby. His historic social media stream tells us that he was on holiday and he was celebrating a wedding anniversary. We know the location from extra data stored inside photographs and from a myriad of other sources.

The question is …Would you like to talk to him?