A Cultural Memory Infrastructure Report

Rhythmic Wave 1.5: An Immersive Performance System for Cultural Preservation documents the conceptual, technical, and participatory frameworks behind the live installation presented at The Music Center in December 2025

The report outlines how movement, AI systems, and collective participation function together as a distributed cultural memory infrastructure. Through speculative worldbuilding, motion capture, spatial computing, and the Living Archive system, the project proposes preservation not as static documentation, but as activated, community-authored continuity.

Highlighted Sections

Cultural Memory as Infrastructure (pp. 8–9)
Introduces the three governing principles of the work:
Movement as data and ritual, bodies as distributed storage, and participation as activation.

The Living Archive System (pp. 16–17)
Details the participatory research instrument developed through MIT Open Documentary Lab methodologies, where audiences contribute preservation formulas and lineage reflections.

Audience Impact Analysis (pp. 18–19)
Presents findings from the Living Archive pilot, including memory flow visualization mapping cultural transmission and resistance pathways.

The Three Engines of Rhythmic Wave 1.5 (pp. 20–21)
Breaks down the Narrative, Technological, and Participation Engines that structure the immersive system.

Rhythmic Wave II: Next-Phase Cultural Infrastructure (pp. 24–25)
Outlines expansion plans including Nigerian motion capture fieldwork, an adaptive AI choreography engine, ethical AI frameworks, and distributed archive models.

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