Peanut Pond
Public Memory
Peanut Pond is a lost piece of the University of Wyoming campus's history; how does this function in the Public Memory of those who now know about it, and how could it have?
1
What is Public Memory?
Matthew Houdek and Kendal Phillips describe public memory as how a community, of any size, calls remembrance and attention to an event or experience that can outlive those who were directly a part of it, but still brings them all together. Any one who is now learning about Peanut Pond is part of one such community.
2
Collective Circulation
What happens when public memory is not an event outliving the people who directly experienced it but the resurfacing of one that did once unite them? This website honoring Peanut Pond is a way of reviving the circulation of a cite of public memory to a collective by making an accessible space to learn about it with as much information as possible included.
3
Co-Memoration
By using an amalgamation of first-hand accounts (namely through the Branding Iron newspapers) to create a narrative of the student body and community's experiences at Peanut Pond, we attempt to use and value co-memoration; a collective dialogue which invites critique to broaden the scope of a place and its function.
4
Embodiment
Finding yourself standing in the site of where the pond used to be, what embodiment is happening as a student or guest with no relation to prior students or campus before coming here? What (De)formation of the site is relevant and potent to you as a viewer and how this pond functions as a community link.
6
Nostalgia
In learning about seemingly idyllic sites and events of the past, a sense of nostalgia is fostered. Sometimes it is founded on misinformation or made-up fantasies. The "good ol' days" is a saying for a reason, humans love to romanticize simpler lifestyles. This could be the case with Peanut Pond... It has a fun name, it was used for fun purposes that were documented more frequently than any other mentions, and it is hard to find an everyday perspective on its existence.
5
Visual Imagery
Discovering the image of Peanut Pond's Tug-of-War immediately gives the viewer a sense of what it may have been like to be there and participate at the time. It is a highly effective device to dive into what the culture of the place was. With only this initial image's information to visually evaluate, it remains a highly effective source of evaluation.
7
Algorithmic Forgetting
When researching the pond, I saw a few mentions about the pond being drained because of a mosquito problem that it created. I could not find an actual credible mention of this being cited as a reason at the time. Google AI also mentions this if you search the pond. This kind of mode of iformation and searching creates misinformation and forgetting through algorithm and AI.