"How Do I Remember Thee" is a computational art experiment scrutinising the intricate process of memory formation and the distortive influence of media. This work delves into the subtleties of how contemporary culture, fuelled by diverse media and the ebbs and flows of visual politics, can override personal and collective memory. As moving mental images lose their sharpness, the work harnesses StyleGan 2 technology to render an Iraqi narrative for the video installation. Provoked by personal reflections comparing broadcast images and collective memory, this project challenges the politics of image creation and manipulation. The clarity of memory is obfuscated, becoming a jumbled tableau threatening the preservation of authentic experiences. The project draws on a dataset of black and white images from Iraq's past, the peaceful pre-conflict era between the 1940s and 1960s.

Informed by Stuart Hall's critical analysis of mass media's role in shaping culture and identity, the work probes the encoding and decoding of messages. In the wake of two decades of turmoil since Iraq's invasion, recent historical images are laden with bloodshed and destruction, encoded with layers of visible and invisible messages shaping Iraq's identity. The work engages with the struggle to preserve the old peaceful identity while warding off the intrusive new aggressive persona. Amidst the global explosion of communication, the protection of personal archival memory from the deluge of these coded images becomes critical. The experiment thus grapples with preserving this vulnerable shrine of memory from external invasions, becoming a poignant study in the fragility of our collective psyche.