The Wardrobe is not just symbolic or poetic. The object itself is a wardrobe decorated by my mother as part of her own artistic practice, inherited by me after her death, and now being developed into a physical system for film, sound, embodied encounter, archive and AI.
The Wardrobe is one inherited object becoming a working instrument for presence, memory and transmission. It is not being designed as a product, and it is not trying to become a generic platform. There will not be a million wardrobes. There is one Wardrobe: this Wardrobe.
The wardrobe already has a surface, a history and a charge. It carries family history, grief, artistic labour, and the strange continuity of objects that outlive the people who made them meaningful. The technical work has to build inside that, not overwrite it.
The Wardrobe will contain a high-spec GPU tower computer, transducers, cameras, microphones, Arduino sensors, cooling and power management. The technology matters because each part has a physical and artistic role: processing, vibration, live presence, documentation, touch, opening, movement, heat and response.
The Wardrobe will use a bespoke local AI system based around XIS: a structured memory framework designed to remember deliberately rather than indiscriminately. I do not mean a chatbot that simply absorbs everything around it. I mean a way of representing people, relationships, events, corrections, contexts, choices and permissions as distinct things.
The Wardrobe is not a surveillance object. It should not automatically convert every live moment into archive. Its memory has to be chosen, and its intelligence has to serve the work rather than quietly extract from it. Memory begins only when something is deliberately carried forward.
I am not trying to turn it into a clever box. I am trying to build inside an object that is already alive with meaning.
I am Toby Godden, an artist, filmmaker and developer working in South Wales across film, sound, live systems, handmade interfaces, archive and experimental AI. My work tends to begin with what is already present: a house, a conversation, a glitch, a family object, a live call that nearly breaks but somehow holds, a story that arrives through someone else’s life and has to be handled carefully.
I am interested in systems that are close enough to the body, the room and the relationship that they can no longer pretend to be neutral. That might mean a live-room for artist conversations, a local server, a sound object, a film practice, a strange interface, or an AI memory system that has to ask what should be remembered rather than assuming everything should be captured.
The Wardrobe brings several strands of my work together, but it also comes from grief. My mother decorated this wardrobe as part of her own artistic practice, and I inherited it after her death. So the object at the centre of the project is not neutral material, and it is not a convenient container for hardware. It already has a surface, a history, a hand, a charge.
I am applying for support to create the first working technical version of The Wardrobe: a live local AI media instrument built inside an inherited decorated wardrobe. The development phase will bring together hardware design, sound, sensors, cameras, local computation, live-room connection, structured memory and consent-based archive practice.
The first version does not need to become polished, seamless or commercial. It needs to work honestly. It needs to prove that the object can host live presence, process media locally, resonate physically, respond to simple interaction, and support chosen memory without becoming a surveillance object.
The Wardrobe connects to Ffilm.org’s live-room practice: small artist-led broadcasts, rehearsals, conversations, performances and acts of witnessing. It gives the live session a physical anchor in the room.
Speakers and transducers allow sound to pass through the body of the wardrobe. The object can hum, vibrate, resonate and respond, becoming audible and tactile at the same time.
Arduino sensors can register opening, touch, proximity, light, temperature and movement. These signals can shape sound, recording states, visual changes, archive modes or live-room behaviour.
The GPU tower gives the Wardrobe enough power to process image, sound, AI and live media locally. The machine has heat, airflow, fans, cables and a physical presence that can be understood.
Some things may be recorded, summarised or transformed into film, text, sound, image, metadata or structured memory. Nothing should be kept simply because the machine was capable of keeping it.
Where possible, technical interventions will be internal, reversible, respectful or clearly distinguishable from the original decorated surface. The new machine has to acknowledge the object it is entering.
The Wardrobe is not a surveillance object. Its memory has to be chosen.
The XIS-based local AI layer will be developed as a careful assistant to the practice. It may help organise material, recall consented fragments, connect artistic context, support live sessions, and make the archive more navigable. It may help identify what a session relates to, what permissions were given, what names or contexts belong to the material, and what should not be carried forward.
The central rule is that live presence remains ephemeral by default. Memory begins only when something is deliberately kept. The Wardrobe becomes the threshold where that choice happens.
After a session in the room, the host and participants choose how much crosses into memory. This is not a technical afterthought. It is the point of the system.
Forget everything.
Keep title, date and participants.
Keep a written note.
Keep anonymised themes.
Store a local recording.
Extract structured project memory.
Ask consent before adding any person.
The Wardrobe gives Ffilm.org’s live-room practice a body. Instead of an abstract web service, the live session becomes anchored in a physical object in a room.
Ffilm.org is developing as a local, artist-led media space for live conversations, rehearsals, film work, witnessed encounters and small broadcasts. LiveRoom is the live presence layer: a way for people to meet, speak, perform, test and record without needing to treat every exchange as content.
This is especially important for the kind of work I am making. Much of it depends on trust, relationship, timing and consent. The Wardrobe helps slow the process down enough for those things to be noticed. It makes the infrastructure visible, which also makes the choices around memory more visible.
The development phase will create the first working technical version of the Wardrobe. The work starts with the object itself: measuring it, planning what can be mounted safely, deciding what needs to remain reversible, where airflow can move, how cables will be routed, and how the decorated exterior can be protected.
Measure the wardrobe, document its current state, plan internal mounting, and identify which interventions must remain reversible or clearly separate from the decorated surface.
Fit the GPU tower, storage, network access, power distribution and cooling so the Wardrobe can process live video, audio, archive material and local AI tasks.
Install cameras, microphone pathways and LiveRoom connection so the object can act as a broadcast anchor and live encounter point.
Add speakers and transducers, then test how sound travels through the wardrobe as material rather than treating it as a hidden playback device.
Use Arduino sensors to establish simple relationships between physical events and media behaviour: opening, touch, proximity, light, heat and movement.
Test the Wardrobe through one small artist-led session involving live presence, physical interaction, local processing and a deliberate choice about memory.
Most digital culture is built to disappear into the background. Servers are hidden, archives are automatic, interfaces are frictionless, and human presence becomes data before anyone has properly decided what it means. The Wardrobe moves in the opposite direction.
It makes the system visible. It gives digital infrastructure a body. It says: this is where the memory lives, this is where the heat is, this is where the sound comes from, this is the object you are speaking near, this is the threshold, and this is the archive only if we choose it to be.
The project brings together things that are usually kept apart: family inheritance, artist-led film practice, local AI, Welsh digital culture, live broadcast, sound and vibration, consent, memory, grief, domestic objects and technical sovereignty. It matters because it refuses to separate the poetic from the practical. It is a machine, but it is also a memorial object. It is a server, but it is also a shrine. It is a film tool, but it is also a question about what should be remembered, who gets to decide, and where memory should live.
The Wardrobe is being built around the principle that memory should be chosen. That principle affects the technical system, the live-room workflow and the archive. It means that recording should not be treated as the default state of a live encounter. It means that participants should know when something is being recorded, what it might become, where it will live, and whether it can be withdrawn, corrected or limited.
The XIS layer matters here because ordinary AI memory can easily become vague and extractive. I do not want a system that simply stores everything and later claims usefulness as justification. I want a system that can distinguish between a person, a session, a fragment, a permission, a correction and a refusal.
The Wardrobe should make these choices visible. It should help people understand when they are in live presence, when they are being documented, when something is being carried forward, and when a moment is allowed to disappear. That is not a limitation of the project. It is the point.
By the end of the development phase, there will be a working first version of the Wardrobe as a live local AI media instrument. It will have a safe internal technical layout, a functioning GPU-based media system, cameras and microphone pathways, sound output and transducers, basic Arduino sensor input, connection to LiveRoom, and an initial XIS-based local memory workflow.
There will also be documentation of the object and its transformation, including visual material, technical notes, written reflection and evidence from the first artist-led test encounter. The project will produce a working prototype, but also a clearer method for future work: how inherited objects, local servers, live media, sound, AI and consent-based archive can be brought together without flattening the human meaning of the material.
The Wardrobe is a serious local media machine inside an inherited artwork-object: a live AI media instrument for film, sound, embodied encounter, archive and chosen memory, built carefully inside a wardrobe decorated by my mother and inherited after her death.
The Wardrobe has already carried one artist’s hand. I am now developing it into a machine that can listen, resonate, witness and remember carefully, locally, and only when memory is chosen.
It is not just a metaphor for memory. It is where the memory system will live. It is not just a symbol of inheritance. It is the inherited object itself. It is not just a poetic idea about local media. It is a serious attempt to build local media infrastructure with a body, a history and a conscience.