An archaeological method that excavates our place in the now through the spectrum of discourses, languages and stories from the past. The prerogative of the literate, the scientific, is to ascribe legitimacy, credibility and sophistication to knowledge that is archivable, transmittable and testable. An archival civilization thus begins to commodify its knowledge devices over the substance of knowledge itself. It loses its ability to curate knowledge in favour of the devices it uses as vehicles for knowledge. It extrapolates its understanding of people from the objects they leave behind.

The nature of the contemporary is to see the constellation for the stars. To appreciate their place in the present as a point on a spectrum that connects them to the totality of knowledge from the past. The contemporary sees the device for what it really is... a museum of memory and knowledge. The contemporary understands the device, the object, as an artifact emerging from the relationships of the people who used it.

Project

Memory Device reverses the excavation of knowledge from the object. It constellates the device(s), these museums of memory and knowledge, analogous to Benjamin's dialectic image.