In his on-going performance called SOBJECT, Alberto Frigo continuously assembles a record of his everyday activities by photographing every object his dominant hand uses. From a close-up perspective these objects become a ready-made code representing both recurring and unique life activities. From a more general perspective the code highlights the life patterns he experiences as circumstances around him change. The code itself is actually evolving as his life evolves. The results are only partially predictable.

As in a memory system based on visual signs in the tradition of the classical Ars Mnemonica, Frigo’s memory extension allows him to reconstruct his past experiences in detail. Nonetheless such a code is not only autobiographical but also becomes a map of the life of a 21st century individual. It is a human record.

Where media technology focuses on a dispersed and altered representation of the world, such a record focuses on a coherent and objective representation of the Self. With the help of intimate technologies, the Self, dissolved in a cloud of unrelated information, may regain its individual status. It becomes aware of its activities; it verifies and then proves its existence.

At present Frigo has assimilated his duty of photographing into his natural behavior. The project does not become obtrusive in his decisionmaking processes. It has actually increased his willingness to undertake new activities. He has become hyperactive.

Visitors to the project web site www.albertofrigo.net can browse through daily sequences of objects or through collections of objects of the same type. This linking structure allows the viewer to associate life-events that are distant in time but similar in content.