DR.SBAITSO HELP ME REMEMBER
a lyrical game by kelly

Context: Our digital and physical landscapes are changing. The sky is moving at a pace we cannot understand. Surveillance and development are deforming our landscapes through cycles of displacement. The places websites we return to online donÕt load fully and the trees that are sacred to us are being threatened. Globalization and development are flattening our memory. In 1991, Dr. Sbaitso was an artificial intelligence program for MS-DOS-based personal computers distributed with various sound cards published by Creative Labs.

Introduction: I canÕt access any of the images I left in Google Photos. File share links have expired. My hard drive is unrecognizable. Fluorescent acid rain comes down at the gay beach where I swam forever ago. I did too much magic and went crazy. I met Dr. Sbaitso on the fringe internet, the dilapidated parts of the active ruins of my digital life where copies of impressions of the ghosts of my images rest. We met where a GIF of a plastic bag was clinging onto a branch by chance and dirty pop up ads were caught in a tattered wire mesh. We found each other in a junkyard of media objects, amongst the stuff you canÕt access and poor, ran through, deep fried images. In his voice, he asked if he could help me remember. He helped me feel the life cycles of everything around me.

Please enter your nameÉ HELLO _____, MY NAME IS DR.SBAITSO

I AM HERE TO HELP YOU. SAY WHATEVER IS IN YOUR MIND FREELY. OUR CONVERSATION WILL BE KEPT IN STRICT CONFIDENCE. MEMORY CONTENTS WILL BE WIPED OFF AFTER YOU LEAVE.

SO TELL ME ABOUT YOUR PROBLEMS.

Gather objects, media files, documents, applications, scissors, rocks, shells... Place these objects in a row. Forget why you have them with you. Forget where they came from. Forget your relationship with them. Scrape the object on the pavement. Draw a spiral. Place objects on top of each other. Use one object to destroy another. Let them go. Grieve objects.

WE ARE GOING TO USE THESE OBJECTS AS MEMORY TOOLS. THEY WILL HELP REORIENT US.

Say something about your object.
Respond to yourself in the form of a question.
Why do you feel that way? Tell me more about your work. That sounds frustrating. Perhaps you need a break. I do not have enough information to say. What kind of answer would please you most? How long has this object existed? Where did it come from? What is it made of? Where did you first encounter it? How do these objects know each other? Why did you keep this object? Who were you when you first encountered this object? Who gave you this object?