Memory Intelligentisa

Memory Intelligentsia seeks to question the role that the algorithmic image plays in our collective and personal history. Algorithms are designed to automate the process of analyzing data. Social media platforms, such as; Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, use algorithms to make the capture, collection and archiving of our everyday moments fun and easy. Each of these platforms automates the selection of moments to highlight and condense into “memories”, “stories”, or “slideshows” to be shared in our network, featuring automatically chosen images to represent the past 24 hours, a designated month, or location in which we captured and stored images.  In what seems to be the systematic organization of the thousands of images we produce and consume each day through our computational devices, algorithms also make the decision to select our most memorable moments, ranking them with an “aesthetic score” amenable to automation.

Now that we produce and consume thousands of photographic images every day, which ones will be remembered?

Scientists at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, have developed an algorithm, called MemNet, to analyze a photo and assign it a memorability score. The correlation between human memory and MemNet is highly consistent (0.68). A heatmap overlays each photo to show areas that are considered memorable and the image is assigned a memorability score.

Using images gathered from the artist’s social media feeds and running them through MemNet’s photo analyzation tool, Memory Intelligentsia investigates how the automatic selection and ranking of our images by a third party-operated algorithm effects our sense of agency and ownership of personal memory and narrative. Who is the author and arbitrator of the selected memories – the photographer, the subject, the viewer, the engineers who designed the algorithm, or the platform of engagement itself? What are the repercussions of choosing to let a corporate platform select our personal memories to be shared with future generations?