A hermitage of memory is a place where our (collective) memories and the evidence of our existence are kept. May they be found… The objects you see in this project are Einsiedeleien der Erinnerung or Lost temples of Remembrance
Long ago, when the human species was endangered to disappear from the face of the planet, drones were sent to the farthest corners of the universe. Their mission was to build organic temples which preserve the cultural memory of mankind. The human species is long gone, but the proof of human existence still exists. Here and there.
The concept
Obviously, this project is experimenting with narrative elements. This is enhanced through the usage of NFT-based attributes / traits. Each monument (~ each Heremitagium Memoriae) contains a certain cargo - comparable to the Voyager’s Golden Records.
The images are the result of the work with ‘AI’, more precisely generated using Stable Diffusion (in a local development environment). The input prompts have been optimized step by step to achieve and maintain a certain consistency towards the narrative concept and connected to the visual appearance. Out of many generated images, some have been selected and manually edited.
The usage of AI fits perfectly into the narrative concept: It is about the investigation of what and how we see. The ‘machine’ is trained based on our collective interpretation of reality (through images for instance). The machine-output can be used to imagine new and biased interpretations of the human memories.
The buildings of Heremitagium Memoriae are similar traces of the human memory. These relicts are taken out of context, planted into a world far away … Each building is provoking questions, but it’s not answering anything.
The project itself is not a statement (e.g. connected to the climate crisis) or answering anything. It just opens a (latent) space for individual reflections and questions.
