Pockets Full of Memories addresses current research interests in emergent algorithmic simulations in relation to data modelling. The audience creates an archive by contributing a digitized image of an object in their possession and then describing their properties through a touch screen questionnaire. The sum of the archive of objects is continuously being organized in a two-dimensional visual map by a Kohonen self-organizing map algorithm, relocating objects of similar descriptions in the map towards each other. The map is projected on a large gallery wall and accessed on the Internet for additional textual data entry.

The database archive of objects contains such common items as phones, keys, toys, clothing, personal documents, currency, clothing textures, and others, The only limitation to what could be added to the archive was determined by the size of the opening of the scanning box. Surprisingly, the database includes an unusual number of scanned heads, hands and feet, extending the archive from simply being a collection of objects to encoding it with an expression of that particular community's interests and diversity: who they are, what they are interested in, how they described themselves represented through the objects donated to the archive. The map of objects continuously organized itself until that final moment of the end of the exhibition.

The order of the final map is a result of all the inputs read throughout the duration of the exhibition. This phenomenon is called material emergence as the order is not determined beforehand but emerges through the large number of local interactions on the map. This is why the system can be called 'self-organizing'. Through the audience's active participation, the resultant archive can be considered as the corporeal presence of the contributors. The ordering and mapping of the objects was determined according to the audience's descriptions entered through a touchscreen questionnaire.

Credits
Concept & Creative Direction George Legrady. Initial Instigator of PFOM and Exhibition Curator for the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Boris Tissot, Boris.Tissot@cnac-gp.fr.
Kohonen SOM Self-Organizing Map Integration University of Art and Design Helsinki. Dr.Timo Honkela, Timo Koskenniemi and MediaLab team. http://scig.uiah.fi/.
Scan Station, Database, SOM System Integration. c3 Center for Media and Communication, Budapest, Marton Fernezelyi, Zoltan Szegedy-Maszak. http://www.c3.hu.
DFEAF03 SOM, Data, System Integration Ethan Kaplan, UCSB. ethankaplan@murmurs.com, http://www.murmurs.com. Projection Visualization Design. Andi Schlegel (DEAF 03 and after), http://www.sojamo.de. Questionnaire Design and Data Analysis. Dr. Brigitte Steinheider, Frauenhofer Institute, Stuttgart, University of Oklakoma, Tulsa. bsteinheider@ou.edu.
Internet Data Access, System Integration. ATON/Create Research, UC Santa Barbara. Andreas Engberg, http://www.create.ucsb.edu.
Graphic Design & Visual Identity. Projekttriangle Design, Stuttgart. Martin Grothmaak, Danijela Djokic, Juergen Spaeth. http://www.prokekttriangle.com.
Financial Support. The Daniel Langlois Foundation for the Arts, Science and Technology, Montreal. The College of Letters and Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara.