Portable Acoustic Memory Unit (0001950-0002000 CE)
Former Western Pacific Region
Previously part of National Museum of Taiwan History, Tainan, Taiwan Collections (transferred to Pre Derangement Gettys Ark in 0002034 CE)
Recovered from an underground shelter complex in the former western Pacific region, this magnetic recording object was found alongside the Early Island Bowed Artefact. Its green printed motif has been interpreted as a territorial or communal sign. Although its audio content is no longer recoverable, the object is associated with the preservation of sound and may have been used in ceremonial or commemorative practice.
Portable Acoustic Memory Unit (0001950-0002000 CE)
Former Western Pacific Region
Previously part of National Museum of Taiwan History, Tainan, Taiwan Collections (transferred to Pre Derangement Gettys Ark in 0002034 CE)
A rare surviving artefact associated with the preservation, transmission, and structuring of sound within communal or ritual contexts. The object was enclosed in a plastic case within a sealed archival container, indicating that it had been deliberately preserved prior to or during a period of crisis. The object has undergone severe deterioration that has rendered the recorded content inaccessible. Its meaning comes from the object’s external form, printed imagery, and archaeological context.
A recording medium linked to political speech and protest
0001950-0002000 CE
Previously part of National Museum of Taiwan History, Tainan, Taiwan Collections (transferred to Pre Derangement Gettys Ark in 0002034 CE)
Portable Acoustic Memory Unit carrying the political urgency of recorded sound. It was intended to be a catalyst for ritual practice, memory, and activism. As its audio content can no longer be accessed, its meaning can be reconstructed through material traces, visual symbols, and archaeological association.
Its outer packaging, presents as a conventional musical recording, served to obscure and protect its underlying content at the time of its creation. These obscuring strategies, now contribute to its loss, as the distinction between surface and meaning has collapsed across time. Histories are not only forgotten, but structurally obscured, acts of protection may become conditions of erasure. Material speculation is our only tool to understand this object, once its original voice is no longer recoverable.
An historical document of political activism, dissent, and memory
0001950-0002000 CE
Previously part of National Museum of Taiwan History, Tainan, Taiwan Collections (transferred to Pre Derangement Gettys Ark in 0002034 CE)
Portable Acoustic Memory Unit, a rare surviving object thought to have been used for the preservation of socially significant sound within communal or ceremonial settings. Originally created as a carrier of political speech, song, and public expression, the object once functioned as a fragile vessel for voice, resistance, and the circulation of collective feeling. Its discovery alongside the Early Island Bowed Artefact has further encouraged the interpretation that both objects once formed part of a related acoustic assemblage, with one associated with live sound production and the other with its preservation or transmission.
AKo Chi-Hwa Speech and Song Cassette Recording (ca. 0001987 CE)
Previously part of National Museum of Taiwan History, Tainan, Taiwan Collections (transferred to Pre Derangement Gettys Ark in 0002034 CE)
Cassette recording containing Ko Chi-Hwa’s anti-National Security Law speech, Song of Freedom (in Japanese and Taiwanese), and related public recordings associated with Taiwan’s dangwai movement in the late authoritarian period. The cassette was preserved within a commercially printed music cover, which concealed its political content.
https://collections.nmth.gov.tw/CollectionContent.aspx?a=132&rno=2019.024.0940.0002
Associated figures: Ko Chi-Hwa and Tsai A-Li
Taiwan
Previously part of National Museum of Taiwan History, Tainan, Taiwan Collections (transferred to Pre Derangement Gettys Ark in 0002034 CE)
In the climate disruption of a dysfunctional world of environmental collapse and mass displacements, human origin stories are interrupted. Memory survives only in fragments, partially accessed through the few surviving material objects of past worlds. With historical archives lost, museums function as sites of speculative reconstruction, where objects can only be interpreted through material traces as unstable carriers of meaning.
Informed by Robock, A. (2011) Nuclear winter is a real and present danger. Nature 473, 275-276. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/473275a; Wilson, N., Payne, B. & Boyd, M. (2023) Mathematical optimization of frost resistant crop production to ensure food supply during a nuclear winter catastrophe. Sci Rep 13, 8254. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-35354-7; Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993).