Introduction

Prosthetic Memory: The Starlight Archives is a project which builds from my grandfather’s life, spanning over eighty-fiveyears and continuing still, and my grandmother’s fascinating archive, both of which have been laced with private and public history. My grandfather worked for NASA for decades, contributing to the Apollo and Space Shuttle missions on an executive level. Dementia is steadily disintegrating and decomposing his memories. The damage is indiscriminate: no memory, no matter how strong—his graduation, his marriage, his retirement—has been left untouched. My grandmother, fortunately, has for years kept a thorough archive of current and past generations’ stories, including letters, objects, photographs, audio recordings and films: she has created an archive of what she calls Memory Books. More than merely family albums, these testaments and testimonies have become his “Prosthetic Memory.”

Bricks

Slide Holders

Audio Tapes