compressed memory explores the fragility of human perception and data memory through digital sound compression. like other lossy formats, mp3 uses psychoacoustic principles, exploiting how the human ear perceives sound. it retains only audio components we can seemingly perceive, discarding softer sounds masked by louder ones or tones too close in pitch to distinguish. in this installation, an a cappella version of suzanne vega’s tom's diner undergoes extreme compression process. a script repeatedly re-encodes the track, degrading audio quality. only the difference between the compressed and original versions is played back, revealing the eerie, overlooked sounds we’re conditioned not to notice.

jonas hammerer is a vienna-based musician and sound artist. in his artistic practice, he explores synthetic, process-oriented systems and their subjective perception through live performances and sound installations. he studied electroacoustic and experimental music at the university of music and performing arts vienna, where he is now a research associate at the artistic research center. he is currently undertaking master's studies at the tam-lab, university of arts linz and the institute for machine learning at jku linz.