JAIME CORREA
and Associates
SHUTTERED MEMORIES
Design Team: Jaime Correa
A conceptual project answering a hypothetical question about human memory: what kind of cognitive map would I be able to generate if I would suddenly forget the network of places where I’ve spent most of my adult life? This is an image where the location of every building where I lived or worked becomes a node for the emergence of two unique geometric figures. The new irregular planes result as the product of the removal of the surfaces contained amongst the location of my abodes and my professional offices in the City of Miami. They are rendered with conventional land use colors representing residential uses and commercial uses; the main transportation arteries of the city are represented in blue producing a shuttered glass effect. This is also an image about our perception of place and our limited recollection of the structure of the city. As an abstraction, this image forces the viewer to compare the territories occupied in the human mind with the pragmatic reality of the territories occupied by our daily actions. Given the exclusivity of our human experience, cities are composed of as many similar overlapping geometries as their current number of inhabitants; the only constant component remaining is the shuttered glass effect of its transportation arteries. As a result of this analysis new questions arise: can we ever achieve a complete experience of the city? Is our understanding of the city a mere abstraction of reality? A mere logical construct made out of disparate components? How can we build real communities when our experience of the city is not a matter of agreement but a matter of difference? As a provocative thought experiment, it is only meant to be a bottom-up graphic record of my own urban experience rather than a top-down scientific scheme begging for data or public opinion.