The Institute of Memory (TIMe): A Digital Identity

In today’s society, the understanding of one's own identity becomes blurred as technology progresses. How do we as humans create borders around our identities as we engage in contemporary technologies? Please join artist Lars Jan and Professor of Media Technology Pattie Maes as they consider the future of memory. Co-hosted by David Henry (Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston), this intimate and provocative conversation will touch on the interplay between technology and human identities while exploring the porosity and created borders of our own identities.

This program is co-presented by the MIT List Visual Arts Center, MIT Media Lab, and the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA).

Lars Jan and the Early Morning Opera will be performing The Institute of Memory (TIMe) at the Institute of Contemporary Art on Friday, November 17 and Saturday, November 18. 

About the Speakers
Lars Jan is a director, writer, visual artist, and founder of Early Morning Opera, a genre-bending performance + art lab whose works explore emerging technologies, live audiences, and unclassifiable experience. Jan’s original works—including Holoscenes, The Institute of Memory (TIMe), and Abacus—have been presented by institutions as diverse as the Whitney Museum, Sundance Film Festival (New Frontier), BAM Next Wave Festival, the World Science Festival, Toronto Nuit Blanche, London’s Burning, and the Istanbul Modern. As the winner of the 2017 Audemars Piguet Art Commission, Jan will present Slow-Moving Luminaries, an immersive, kinetic pavilion, at Art Basel Miami Beach this December. He is on faculty at CalArts and a TED Senior Fellow.

Pattie Maes is a professor in MIT's Program in Media Arts and Sciences as well as academic head of the MAS Program. She runs the Lab's Fluid Interfaces research group, which aims to radically reinvent the human machine experience. Coming from a background in artificial intelligence and human computer interaction, she is particularly interested in the topic of cognitive augmentation, or how immersive and wearable systems can actively assist people with memory, learning, decision making, communication, and wellbeing.

David Henry is the Bill T. Jones Director of Performing and Media Arts at the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art. In his current position he is responsible for all performances and screenings at the ICA—a total of over 100 programs per year.  Henry began working at the ICA in 2004, and oversaw the development of all programming for the ICA’s new facility. Previously he was Head of Education at The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and worked in the education department of the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN).  

Webcasts of events in the MLTalks series are live captioned for the hearing impaired. Audio Assist Devices are available for those attending in person; please email for more information.