Recalling Companion Animals with an Interactive Installation

Changyoon Yi, Juhyun Bae, Nakkyu Baek, Jina Jung, Sunwoong Hur, Hyun Jean Lee and Seung Ah Lee (Siggraph 2021)

ReMember is an interactive installation that provides bereaved pet owners with a sense of presence and connection to their companion animals. In this work, we integrated the audiovisual effects of the heartbeat recordings and the cremation stones of companion animals.

The cremation stones serve as an important physical artifact that embodies the subject of the memory. On the contrary, the heartbeat represents life and vitality. The audiovisual effects of the heartbeat play two significant roles: to connect the cremation stones and the heartbeat and to add the dynamic and lifelike effects with varying color, intensity, and size of the displayed pattern. Lastly, we intended the user’s hands to bring life to the cremation stones, and allow the users to physically interact with their pets embodied in the cremation stones. Participants commented that the heartbeat signal significantly augmented their experience of reminiscence and the interactivity added a novel touch to ReMember.

remember_video.mp4