IIT Madras organises international conference in ‘Memory Studies Memory in a Digital Age’

CHENNAI: Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) Centre for Memory Studies is organizing an International Conference on ‘Memory in a Digital Age’ from August 23 to 25, 2022. The conference is being conducted in hybrid mode, featuring over 160 speakers from the UK, USA, Israel, Poland and Australia as well as from across India.

IIT Madras is also tying up with an all-women-led technology company Vizara Private Limited from Delhi for the purpose of producing research on digital humanities and heritage studies. The conference features plenary talks by Rebekah Vince, Queen Mary, University London, Vishnu Sreekumar, Memory and Neurodynamics Lab, IIIT Hyderabad, and Anupama Mallik, CEO Vizara Technologies.

The IIT-M conference was inaugurated today by Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, minister for finance and human resources management, Government of Tamil Nadu, in the presence of V Kamakoti, conference faculty coordinators Avishek Parui and Merin Simi Raj besides Jyotirmaya Tripathy, Head, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras.

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MemoryBytes app

The conference also saw the release of ‘MemoryBytes,’ the first AR-based mobile app capturing the history and life of the transnational Anglo-Indian community across 500 years. “The app will provide an interactive, animated, and augmented experience of photographs, maps, and archival documents during the physical-cum-digital exhibition held during the conference at the IC&SR Building of IIT Madras,” the institute said in a statement.

Addressing the inaugural event, Palanivel Thiaga Rajan said, “We are in the age of universal memory and so much common information is available to anybody, anytime. It has greatly enhanced the intellectual capabilities of the common people. Now, we live in the age of infinite external memory. However, there are issues in engines of storage and retrieval.

Conferences such as these are very important since universalization of memory has still not translated to universal access.”

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He also launched the ‘MemoryBytes’ app and the Conference Book, and further said, “Tamil Nadu is within the top 3 states where we have instituted a computer in every MLAs’ desk. Every single debate, bill and budget will be made available so that MLAs can extract it in real time and contribute to the debate so that they do not have to rely on their internal memory.”

Palanivel Thiaga Rajan added, “I am happy to note that an Institute with such strong technical grounding has such an interdisciplinary Humanities department and that this department has such a strong Centre for Memory Studies researching on the interface of culture, history, heritage, and technology.”

The conference will be followed by the creation of ‘Campus Chronotopes,’ the first VR-based 360-degree stereoscopic video capturing the dynamic life and human-nature interfaces in the IIT Madras campus through omnidirectional cameras.

It will feature an AR-based physical and digital exhibit at IIT Madras campus featuring the history and journey of Anglo-Indian communities, directly exemplifying the experience of memory in a digital age.

Welcoming the participants from India and abroad, IIT Madras director V Kamakoti said, “Memory in the digital age is very important...How do we store and maintain the formats when we have so many digital formats. There are different varieties of storage and these software must be compatible with many platforms. As the data keeps growing, we are looking at different ways on how to store data. I am sure there are many efforts being taken in this direction. The other aspect is this conference will feature many AR and VR related developments. You (participants) can experience them, learn from history and learn from the past. Surely, we will be investing quite a bit in research and funding.”

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Highlighting the key outcomes expected from this conference, Avishek Parui, Conference Coordinator and Faculty, said, “This conference exhibits the rich output and outreach of our Centre for Memory Studies in terms of international collaborations and world-class research at the interface of humanities, heritage, and technology.”

“The Centre for Memory Studies aims to embark on a major project titled ‘Re-membering Mamallapuram,’ which will offer an AR/VR-enabled re-creation and study of the famous trade town in all its historical significance, contributing to the Centre’s efforts to study and re-present Indian history and heritage through the theories of memory and technology,” it added.