MEMORY CLOUD

About

Memory Cloud Trafalgar Square 8 — 10 October 2008 The ICA is proud to present Memory Cloud, an incredible light and smoke installation set to transform London's Trafalgar Square in October. Based on smoke signals, one of the oldest forms of communication, for three nights Trafalgar Square will be immersed in cloud of smoke through which giant light messages will projected. Immersive and interactive the public will be invited to text-message communiqués in to this smoke cloud where they will be displayed for all in the Square to read; whether they're in the Square or around the country, anyone with anything to say can communicate via this ephemeral billboard. Fusing in the ancient capacities of smoke as a medium for communication, Memory Cloud uses contemporary SMS technology to transform Trafalgar Square in to a collective space of conversation. Personal statements are memorised in the technical system and then visualised in the gigantic plumes of smoke. The very nature of the cloud form writes, presents and then slowly erases the memory statements; each memory then becomes part of a collective social experience. Memory Cloud aims to motivate social interaction through the visualisation of personal expression as a collective act of writing space.