A very personal piece. Image degradation, digital and physical. Memory Restoration As A Service.

These pieces each begin with a photograph I took on a plastic-lens camera, between 2008 and 2010. From the moment they were taken, often on film with intentional damage, they were beginning to break down. Over a decade later, that version of myself is someone I only know through artifacts like these. It's been said that every time you play a memory back, you rewrite it -- in this case, they were rearranged and put back together programmatically.

After having a series of conversations with an OpenAI bot about memory, youth, and specifically 2009, I superimposed the algorithmically generated insights over my own failing mental images. Surprisingly, working through this has helped me remember. I hope it helps you remember as well.