MEMORY INSTALLATION

Using time lapse photography, I captured the creation of the installation. The installation itself was focused on the process of creation, therefore the final form is not the developed work, but a product of it.

It was created by layering and building a mass with single objects, collected and stored from childhood, which would then be doused in white paint and the process repeated. I started the installation with the intent to make it appear to grow from the walls of the studio, to capture it's progress and to experience the process of acknowledging and obliterating memories. As visual cues to memories, each object was precious despite its lack of material value. I took time to acknowledge each thing and the memory it prompted before obliterating it. Therefore it was an extremely emotionally draining exercise, destroying these ties and access to earlier memory; something which I severely underestimated. 

It grew as a natural form would, invading both the personal space of the 'Home installation' and my workspace in the studio, which was greatly reflective of the effect of the process. The white paint was useful in retaining a sense of the form of the thing, while still linking to my personal connection of the colour with memory loss.

This was my final developed piece as it allowed me to access the very feelings and impressions I was exploring as part of my work. While I did not intend for the effect to be so severe, its creation affirmed the fear of forgetting and lack of visual connection to memories.

FINAL VIDEO PIECE

This was the final development of the sculpture, installation and photography work. In order to push the work further into recreating the dream state, a felt film would be the best medium, due to my moving perspective and to introduce sound.

The soundscape used layered, familiar sounds, including a song from childhood and crying, distorted almost beyond recognition. Reverb and paulstretch were essential effects in recreating a vast empty atmosphere, which is often the setting for such dreams.

This was largely created to support the visual image, which used multiple cuts of films in order to create a confused and meandering trail of focus. The lighting and obscured forms worked very successfully to recreate the sensation of the dream and I felt an instant familiarity watching it.

The piece was limited, as with previous experiments, by the very condition it was exploring. It did not aid me in any way to create a mental image. It's success was limited to my intent to explore whether I could recreate sensations and more abstracted memories though this media.

TENT INSTALLATION EXPERIMENTS

This experimentation was an extension of recreating the recurring-dream image described in the earlier post. As my clothing had successfully evoked familiarity, I felt the addition of the familiar light sources within a darker environment could successfully realise the memory.

To tie the two objects together and provide further supplementary tonal changes, I added the children's play tent. Already used less successfully in a previous term with a projecting experiment, I believe my inability to visualise and realise that experiment gave the impetus to reuse it in this. 

I felt that the use of lamp light and more advanced photography skills meant the tent was better utilised in this installation. It gave shelter to the crouched form, further obscuring it and dwarfing it, despite its own small size and provided a barrier to soften the lights from the lamps, meaning the light was hazier and objects were more dimly illuminated. It also gave greater variation in the choice of colours, which contributed to the childlike nature of my attempts to create an image from a dream.

Experimental light photography

Using reflections I attempted to create a more abstract rendering of the light fixtures, more reflective of my inability to visualise imagined objects. These flatter, blurred colours are closer to the sensations and impressions of recalling memory.

LAMPSHADE EXPERIMENTS

2. Hand-painted plate

 

Attempt 3

 I anticipated this to be the most successful, having eaten off of these plates for years and having some in cupboards at uni. The resulting pattern was, however, an approximation and I felt sure that there was something amiss with the matching of the colours and the pattern.

Nonetheless it exuded a comforting atmosphere and once again, the use of light reflected the significance of light for me in processing memories.

LAMPSHADE EXPERIMENTS

2. Bedroom walls

Attempt 2

Simplifying the difficulty of recalling patterns, this experiment attempted to precisely colour match the two colours of my old bedroom walls. I believe it was quite accurate, though I made the conscious decision not to check and reaffirm memories of it. Painting technique caused brushmarks to become visible when light was shone through, however, which did mean it lost some impact. The light did, however, giver off the cool tinge which defined how I remembered the room, due to the blue curtains affecting the tonality of the light.

LAMPSHADE EXPERIMENTS

1. Living room curtain.

As part of my exploration of the limitations of aphantastia, I made small experimental pieces, taking the memory of a pattern or colour from home and attempting to recreate it on a lampshade.

Attempt 1

This was highly unsuccessful. The curtains at home are one of the most familiar items to me as they have been in place as long as I can remember. Golden coloured flower form a pattern down a yellow background. When I attempted to paint this from memory, I could barely recall the correct colours, let alone recreate the complex shapes of the flowers. All that was successful was the sense of warmth I recall from looking at them, which was accentuated by the light shining through, as if the sun was coming in through the curtains.

On the other hand this distorted version of reality is a good reflection of memories itself, despite my personal frustrations.

Wire and clothing sculpture. Later developed into installation and film pieces.

Developing from my inability to visualise images, my inability to recall or recreate faces lead to me to explore sculptural means of representing the human form. 

This sculpture was inspired by the memory of a recurring dream, which I am sure is grounded in some early memory, where I cannot fully see a huddled form. I remember the dream-scape itself being variable, changing in colour and light, but always disguising the reduced, child-like human form. 

I created a wire interior to support the clothing, not intended to replicate the human form, but to give the vague impression of something shrunken and absent. Using old clothing of my own, I attempted to replicate the sense of familiarity which lasted with me after waking.

START OF TERM 3 WORK

(Above)