MATERIALIZING MEMORY

Dr Will Kurlinkus
“What appear to be nothing more
than useful instruments are, from
another point of view, enduring
frameworks of social and political
action” (x).
—Langdon Winner
 PHILOSOPHIES OF TECHNOLOGY

• Instrumentalism (somnambulism): a technology is a tool:

Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
• Determinism: some inevitable thing (good or bad) stems
from adopting a new technology: as long as we have guns
we will automatically have mass shootings
• Social Constructionism (the social determination of
technology): “What matters is not technology, itself, but the
social or economic system in which it is embedded”
(Langdon Winner 20-21): a lack of mental health system
combined with toxic masculinity kills combined with lax
gun control laws kills people
 DO ARTIFACTS HAVE MEMORIAL
POLITICS?

• Who wants whom to remember what and why?=What memory objects are we urged to collect and why? How is
memory socially constructed?
• “All products—digital and analog, tangible and intangible—are vivid arguments about how we should lead our lives”
Richard Buchanan.
Think of a nostalgic artifact: —a photo, a souvenir, an old post from Facebook—anything that you sometimes look at to
trigger happy memories and a longing for simplicity. Describe the story behind it and the suite of emotions it makes
you feel (happy, sad, proud, angry, etc.). What does it represent? Who does it represent?
Explore the cultural and personal values embodied in the artifact. What ideologies, for example, are buried beneath
such innocuous objects as a back-to-school photo, ticket stubs, a dried prom corsage? What personal, familial, and
communal forces guided you to keep this object? Why couldn’t you throw it away? What are such memories supposed
to do/protect against? How would you feel if this object was lost? Who wants whom to long for what, why, and to
which ends?
WHAT IS MEMORABLE UX?
 N A R R ATA B I L I T Y : T H E A P P E T I T E
TO PA RT I C I PAT E I N A N D
R E C O U N T N O S TA L G I C
S TO R I E S A B O U T D E S I G N S .

• What and why do we remember

stories for people?
• Behavioral residue: something
leftover after the experience to
act as a platform for stories (a
souvenir, tshirt after running a
marathon, and I voted sticker)
• Delighters are memorable: small
unexpected surprises vs.
expected rewards (hey look what
I got!) + Easter Eggs
(secrets/suprises revealed with
repeatd play)
 CRAFT: THE POSITIVE MEMORIES AND HUMAN CONNECTIONS
GAINED FROM CON- TRIBUTING TO THE LIFE CYCLE OF AN
OBJECT.

• The IKEA effect: People value things more if they took part
in making them (even if a little bit)
• The ecology of care surrounding an object (its aura+my
grandma made this for me): connects us to people across
time
• Objects that age with grace
 CONNOISSEURSHIP: SHARING IN
COMMUNAL CONSUMPTION AND A
TASTE FOR PLAYING WITH TIME
THAT REQUIRE MEMORABLE
RITUALS AND TRADITIONAL
KNOWLEDGE AS BADGES OF
MEMBERSHIP

• Focusing and slowing

consumption (learning to
become a part of a community):
wine tasting, chocolate tasting,
ritualizing, oreos, blue moon
beer
• Rewarding communities of
”forensic fans”