The Rekall Project

The robot “Rekall” is a small wind-up toy robot who guides people around the world and creates artificial travel memories. The project is a work in progress. Several versions have already been created, with different interactive elements, like a webcam or a keyboard. Each version is represented by a new robot, as if the previous one has been reassembled.
The work is inspired by a short story by Philip K. Dick, in which people who want to travel, but due to various circumstances cannot go, ask Rekall Inc. for help. Rekall promises its customers to implant artificial memories that are indistinguishable from real ones. Although the customer is informed in advance that the “experienced” is not real, the “memories” evoke the same emotions as real experiences.
The work emphasizes the absurdity of mass tourism, the superficiality of the short long-distance trips and hasty weekend city trips, which sometimes seem to have the only goal of getting a palpable proof “that one has been there” – while the ecosystem is destroyed and the original culture is lost.