In this third session Anja Groten presents “The aesthetics of power”. Unfortunately Anja Groten was not present at the conference, instead, she replaced her physical presence with an audiovisual presentation. Anja Groten is a designer and researcher based in Amsterdam who presents for Society of  the Query  her project called “Machina recordatio“. Machina Recordatio gives voice to hose excluded from society: the elderly. Machina Recordatio is a search engine where you can search for topics or key words concerning relationship issues, or everyday problems, professional decisions… All that questions that can be only answered by the voices of  experience. Certainly,  it gives responses by the experts of life; it is a wisdom machine.

The idea of this project emerged from the necessity to give voice to individual experience. As Anja Goroten holds, knowledge nowadays is a fast available resource for everyone. Nonetheless, the wisdom that was before passed on the coexistence of the  family, is now somehow missing because of the new technologies. This experience of the “old” people could help us with issues that have not changed along time, such as the fear of life, the death, the future, facts as be abandoned by your partner… is that different from today?

Machina Recordatio has interviewed seniors in the recent months in Hamburg, Berlin and Dresden. It is an interactive database of advise that gives you the possibility to ask those who really know. But the most  beautiful  thing about Machina Recordatio is that apart from holding  what will no longer exist, it carries these voices to the public space.

Anja Groten Presentation from A.G. on Vimeo.