Memory of Mankind Project
November 9th, 2018Via: GQ:
So it began in his shop six years ago, in 2012, this time capsule of his, what he calls the Memory of Mankind project (or MOM), with Martin making his first ceramic tablet, etching a greeting to future finders. The first tablet addresses creatures a million years from now—whoever they may be—explaining that here lies “a preservation project” meant to protect knowledge about “our present civilization from oblivion and collective amnesia.” It is dated by the signification of astronomical events, as it’s unclear whether those who come many millennia in the future will know how to read numbers. There’s also a pictionary, so they can understand our letters and words.
The act of creating that first tablet alone felt absolutely freeing. The ensuing tablets—roughly the size of bathroom tiles—were laser-engraved with personal recollections and global news, texts of books and scientific studies. By starting to build the collection himself first, he hoped to entice others—citizens, scholars, experts, enthusiasts—to add to it. Already he’s up to over 500 tablets, with participants from an array of countries, most of them sending files or e-mails through the website he’s created, with material they want printed on a tablet. They send their diary entries and love letters, newspaper articles and obscure dissertations, blogs and texts, the most important parts of us. “MOM is the first ‘bottom-up’ history of the world,” said Martin.
