Computer Arts Society talk (video)

Alex May gave an online talk for the Computer Arts Society on 7 April 2020, introducing A Mirror For Remembering and discussing some of the opportunities and challenges involved in making the work. The event brought the newly completed virtual reality project into a context closely aligned with CAS’s long-standing interest in the creative and critical use of computers in the arts.

The talk focused on more than a simple project presentation. A Mirror For Remembering was developed as a virtual reality artwork about digital preservation, permanence, and access, and that required May to think through both the artwork’s experiential structure and its long-term survival as a digital object. Speaking to a computer art audience made it possible to discuss those questions in direct relation to tools, workflows, and the broader cultural conditions that shape how digital works are produced and maintained.

For May, the event placed the project within a lineage of artists using computation not only as technique but as a way of thinking. In that setting, A Mirror For Remembering became part of a wider conversation about what digital culture keeps, what it forgets, and how artists can build those questions into the form of the work itself.