INTtalks - The Memory Threshold

“There are as many versions of a story as there are listeners. There are as many experiences as there are players. It is not the voice that commands the story: it is the ear.” - Italo Calvino

“The Memory Threshold” is a game between two players–self and the other, new self and old, self and shadow–to provoke a memory drawn from a cultural ritual and translate it into the virtual animation experience. The boundaries between physical games and virtual animation are blurred. Space, time and play become a Play-Space.

The Memory Threshold introduces the digital gaming environment as a medium within which four cultural rituals can be framed and tested in relation to narrative theory.

It establishes self positioning of the player, “the self,” as an important factor for interpreting and navigating through one’s own spatial experience within the interiority fabric.

The four zones that were explored in the design process are organized within a fabricated context in the digital environment, where each passage leads to interior spaces (The Salt Room, The Spicy Cabin, The Tea Room and The Threshold) that represent the cultural ritual. Each one of these interior spaces contribute their individual allegorical narratives perceived through the animated spatial configurations.

This coexistence between the cultural rituals and the interiority of these spaces, as well as the relationship between the two players--the self and the other--allow for opportunities and dialogues to be formed as a method of overlaying different theories, time, and narratives into one spatial experience.

The Threshold Memory is tied back to the idea of who the designer is and who the viewer/ participant of the space is to ensure that the personalized elements of the cultural rituals are not lost through the influence of the readers, but is rather experienced and enjoyed through their own personal interpretation of a virtual space designed through the abstraction of the designer's lenses.

This project positions itself as an invitation for participants of all cultures into the speaker's world, a meeting ground for searching and finding one’s meaning and belonging.

Lamiae El Mourabit's identity as a designer and educator is an amalgamation of her Moroccan roots, her unique upbringing and her eclectic experiences living abroad. Mental snapshots of her past lived spaces have shaped her vision as a designer today. Waking up everyday to the smell of the Moroccan spices, the call to prayer in the background, still provides, to this day, a vault of memories and spatial experiences which she continues to draw upon in experiencing and communicating her design philosophy.

With a background in architecture, Lamiae's work is situated within a complex intersection between memory, senses, and material explorations. In that sense, every square meter on the planet has a past condition, which appears in its form, sense of perception and/ or interpretation. So, whichever the place, the scale and the identity of the design is, memory is the main factor which could be applied under different forms and conditions.

Lamiae is most interested in the in-between spaces, the thresholds that prompt dialogue between in and out, senses, imagination, and the inhabited experience. In this project, her goal as a designer is to invite interior design to become an experiential canvas upon which a person’s unique culture can be situated and a personal narrative applied.

Lamiae's Animation Work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiGYqYPfY6c

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