When is the next
Museums and the Web?


Archives & Museum Informatics
158 Lee Avenue
Toronto, Ontario
M4E 2P3 Canada

info @ archimuse.com
www.archimuse.com

Search A& MI

Join our Mailing List.
Privacy.

Copyright
Archives & Museum Informatics
2000

Commemorating through technology - Building Memory Communities

http://www.cteh.ac.il/staff/ilanam/

Session: Memory

This paper proposes a design for digital multimedia commemoration systems and the creation of Memory Communities. These systems include the integration of physical, museum based elements and online virtual components.

The design of Memory Communities is based on a theoretical examination of the relationship between media and commemoration; examining the unique qualities of interactive media, the relationship between media and technology and the existing uses of these media in commemoration practices. The proposed design of Memory Communities is based on the conclusions of this investigation. Within these systems, existing paradigms of information structure and presentation are reevaluated and combined. The result is a system that opens the process of commemoration to the members of the community. This cultivates a sense of personal connection and collective identity centered on the commemorated subject.

My research involves studying the commemorative aspects of interactive media within museums and memorials, focusing primarily on commemoration of the Holocaust and memorials for IDF soldiers.

Much praiseworthy work is being done around the world, to gather and analyze Holocaust testimonies. The outcome is thousands of viewing/reading hours of data, mostly in digital form. Data, which due to its quantity, will be stored in vast multimedia repositories and accessible through sophisticated search and catalogue facilities.

These multimedia systems have done much to ensure the preservation of the information regarding the Holocaust. However, storing and preserving information regarding events, communities and individuals is not the same as commemorating those same topics. For a memory to be eternalized, it must be communicated in a meaningful, ongoing manner. Information that is not accessible, data organized by systematic rather than communicative principles, cannot in itself be considered a form of commemoration.

Communicating shared memories is one of the cornerstones for forming communities. The dialectic relationship between a community and its collective memories helps define the nature of the community itself and the role of commemoration within it. In many ways, the existence of the community itself can be seen as a form of commemoration.

In the context of the Holocaust, the formation of Memory Communities which share a commitment to the communication of this shared history, is one of the goals of designing a commemoration system. The destruction and dispersion of many physical communities makes it necessary to create new communities dedicated to sharing memories they never experienced in any form other than through the media. These communities then become an additional memorial to the past itself. This paper proposes a design for digital multimedia commemoration systems and the creation of Memory Communities. These systems include the integration of physical, platform based elements and online virtual components.