Inmemory: social memory, locative narratives
Gianni Corino & Duncan Shingleton

Locative media as a term shares with another term, the ‘Internet of Things’, the very up-to-date attempt to define the technical and cultural shift anticipated in the society as it moves to a ubiquitous form of computing in which every device is ‘on’, and in some way connected to the Internet. Through different location based technologies, we create a data sphere for the Internet that offers up new possibilities to locate or ‘attach’ the digital to objects, space and people.

This is the starting point for rethinking our relationship with the physical world, and we can begin to imagine scenarios where the physical and digital spheres collapse onto each other. One important element in the equation refers to the kind of agency objects and spaces will have in this relationship. As a case study the article will present a project titled Inmemory, developed and presented in Edinburgh at the Inspace gallery in June 2010. Inmemory aims to explore how personal or collective stories coupled to objects and/or spaces could transform our current value system across communities and society. Inmemory main aim is to investigate in practical terms the emerging field of the ‘Internet of Things’ culturally and technologically. The creative, artistic and interactive potential of the ‘Internet of Things’ is the central point of investigation in relation to three main elements: object, memory and agency.