Rehearsal of Memory is an interactive art work created by Graham Harwood in association with the patients and staff of Ashworth, a high security hospital, to produce a work that would express some of their life experiences. Patients at Ashworth are admitted on the authority of the British courts or from other prisons. Their crimes include murder, manslaughter, arson, kidnap, rape, assault and criminal damage.
The work was conceived using new media as a corrective to the sterility of computer technology. The patients and staff each contributed a part of their body to make a ‘composite person’. This appears life-size on the computer screen, turning the screen into a window between the viewer and the virtual world of the hospital. The viewer can only see one part of the body at a time. By clicking on various icons images, texts, videos and sounds are revealed that disclose the lives of the patients.
Requires Macintosh with system 7 or above, Quick Time TM, or at least 8Mb of free RAM.