Eco is an idea about how memory contextualizes presence. ECO is an artificially intelligent adult simulacra who is designed with the capacity to learn and feel but is not provided with the personal history of childhood. A speculation is then presented as to how behavior is formed when every experience being internalized is a new experience, thus creating a personal history as it is realized. In this scenario, seemingly paradoxical events such as a whimsical image of a dancing circus elephant might carry with it the same emotional weight as a horribly tragic occurrence of a fatal car accident. The awareness of mourning, an emotional complex, over the absence of an intimate partner may not be fully understood but nonetheless felt. In the context of a historical absence, a context of both birth and amnesia, our own personal histories are continuously being assimilated into a discreet "self". During this process of historical fabrication, all events exist as a conflation of images; an aggregate collage to be parsed and interpreted as the realization of event begins to solidify emotion. Experience thus functions as inquiry into the external of one's being like sonar bouncing off of the depths of the black abyss, providing necessary analytical feedback in order to navigate difficult landscapes. eae Written by brian levi bowman