Kyoko Takahashi

Incomplete Encyclopedia 
of Memory


I researched and designed a book on the theme of "memory". The book is divided into two parts, with the left part examining memory from a logical aspect (think) and the right part from a more sensory aspect (feel). The size of the book references the size of the human brain, and each part references the commonly held belief that the left brain is logical and the right brain is sensory.

The “think” part includes: science behind memory, collective memory (can COVID-19 be a collective memory?, why do Americans feel nostalgia for Japanese "city pop”?, and so on). Also I introduced some projects to use data left behind by deceased artists to create new works by AI. I wanted to bring up a discussion about a future in which memories and records will continue to be active longer than people.

The “feel” part included: the physicality of the ancient art of memory, and the phenomenon of the body remembering even when the mind thinks it has forgotten (for example, one aphasic patient could type without being able to read or write.) Also I showed counseling tools that touch with the patient's memories through tactality.

I wanted making a book to be like a dictionary, an interesting read about the complexity of memory and its still unknown territory.

Challenge


How can I structure the extensive information about memory? How can I have differences and similarities between the two parts? How can I visualize the texture of memory? BookDesign, Generative Deisgn

Instructor: Brad Bartlett
TA: Gwen Geng
Year: 2024

Special Thanks:
Masaya Ishikawa
Rachel Julius (ArtCenter Library)
Pamela Olecki
Guillaume Wolf
Amelia Yessayantz (ArtCenter Writing Center)
and TYPE5 classmates

🏵️ Core77 Design Awards 2025 — Student Winner
🏵️ Exhibited in the Student Gallery


The feel part is designed to be flipped backwards from the way the English page is turned, so arrows are provided to guide the reading order.
It has a bookmark with the same pattern as the cover. Slide it over the cover and you can observe a glimmer like synapses firing. (Masaya Ishikawa(2021), Layers Act)


Posters

Release announcement website
The website includes several generative effects I used in the book. I hoped that the audience would be intrigued by the book through the experiences.
The effects in motion are shown below.


Effect #1: An effect where the letters fall apart when people touch them. I created this effect to evoke the image of a memory that we thought we vaguely remembered, but when we actually touched it, it fell apart and crumbled.
Effect #2: An effect I created inspired by a quote from the book, “the default for humans is to forget; the default for computer is to remember.” The left side shows the ambiguity of human memory, while the right side shows a view is quantified and perfectly remembered by computers. You can play with the webcam turned on. Also you can adjust the degree of blurriness with the slider.
Effect #3: An effect that expresses vague contours of memory. When the webcam is turned on, the images are stacked in a box-like pattern, with the darkest image at the position where the pointer is placed, and the farther away the pointer is, the whiter the image becomes.




Process
I like experiments both analog and digital. I created the image at the beginning of the feel part by melting straws to make objects and photographing them with light shining on them from behind.

Index

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©2025 Kyoko Takahashi