Pools

I was thinking about the mechanics of memory recall being a lot like a lake of dissolved images and experiences. The water undergoes changes that alter the chemical composition of its contents in every moment that passes; and the different catalysts of these reactions come from the environment. Bonds are made between chemicals in the lake to form images and substances that rise to the surface until the moment passes and their chemical bonds are broken and they dissolve back into the deep.

In response to this thought; using latex, pva glue and ink I've been trying to create small pool like sculptures that encase items of personal nostalgia.







I photographed the sculptures both with the items still encased and after I ripped them out as I can't decide yet which works best. The frustration of inaccessible objects or the mournful shell of the object? I definitely want to increase the scale of this work perhaps by creating larger casts or by making many small casts and sewing them together like a huge nostalgia tapestry or blanket that echoes the biological and cells.

I've also been experimenting with coloured inks in the pva glue just to see what happens and I've been left with a rather psychedelic result.

This is a short film which doesn't seem like it took a year to make but I can assure you it did. In some part this is because of the actual length of time I had to sit around with the camera filming but mainly because I've been editing it sporadically since last christmas instead of just working on it solidly for a day or two once I'd collected all my footage.
Anyway, this video is something I've had in mind for a long while, as I do a lot of viewing, contemplating and painting cloud formations and their relationship of conflict with the land and society below them.
I maintain that they deserve far more respect and attention than they receive and I'm certain this will be a lifelong project of work for me.

(Sorry about the poor quality. I'm really angry that Blogspot can't handle HD. What is THAT about like?)

Scent

I have also been working on a continuous archiving piece for my work with personal memory.
I've always felt that the sensation of smelling the familiar is far more evocative of memory than any photograph of an event or even visitation to a place where certain memories occurred.
And so I've been collecting and concocting scents that trigger personal memories and until I found this lovely drinks cabinet to display them in a domestic context they've just been sitting on my desk.
The thing is, that in this desperate pursuit of archiving, where I am constantly smelling familiar scents and improving their presentation, potency etc I'm actually starting to become desensitized to the scents. Each time I smell one it's like indulging in a personal film reel or slide show but the more I do this the more I dilute their power of recall.

I need to continue and build my archive of odours in preparation for a show in February during which I hope to film people's experience of the piece. So far I've seen that its interactive quality could potentially become video as well.

The presentation of each scent inside the jars is also something I need to refine as well as the position and presentation of the piece as a whole. The size and exterior of each can connote to many things.

On a side note, I thought my USB harddrive broke today, turns out it was just the cable but my blood ran cold for the few minutes where I thought I'd lost basically half my work from the last 4 years. That's definitely something to think about in terms of archiving.....

My double exposed images as a film of slides. I looped this and showed it as a projection of about 1.5m wide.
Seeing the images in motion swallowing and regurgitating endlessly and silently has given me a new direction for my work.
Combining movement with silent monochrome I'm trying to present memory as a constant replay of non existent images.
I may progress these images further through slideshows and experiment with afterburn effects on the eyes.

Familiarity

2 weeks ago I traveled back to my home in Wales to take some double exposure photography exploring memory and its distortion of the familiar.
I was aiming to get back some prints which would help me to understand and better represent the distortion of overlain memories that I experience when walking through areas I have known ever since I had the ability to.
These are the scans of the negatives I took using a Yashica, can't remember the model name. They are black and white but I scanned them in colour and I'm warming towards the brownish colouring some of them have.

The main bulk of the photos I took are of a section of my favourite mountain walking route. I took photos of familiar markers along the trail until my film ran out then I put the wound up film back in and walked back along the same way and found more of my favourite scenes along the road.
I used mainly compositions of empty road and pylons to create some sense of interminable memory, boundless in my mind.
The intrusions of lines and shapes are mostly down to chance as I did not know which images of the walk would overlap each other. I could only control the images I regarded as worth capturing. I like the layering process and the fact that each shape in the images is determined by its twin image of the return journey.

These are really pleasing so I may repeat the process with some more parts of my home territory.

The only problem is that most of the photos have no discernable borders which presents a problem when I want to take them to print so I need to find out if and how you can print entire strips of negative.

Chemistry of memory

I'm very intrigued at the moment at the biology and chemistry of memory. I've been researching in as far a depth as I can understand and now I've come back down to single atoms. Sodium and Potassium atoms to be precise. These are the atoms that flow in and out of the axon of a neuron (an electrically excitable cell) and transmit information received from sensory stimulus.

Creating long term memory is about synthesis and strengthening of proteins and the more times neurons transmit impulses the stronger they get. Ergo these tiny atoms are what creates the memories I hold inside my mind. Tiny elements inside the cells in my body inside the food that I eat, inside the rocks of the earth that I walk on.

I'm not really sure what to do with this information yet but it may well involve some geological research of the rocks of my hometown.

current Project: Memory

I want to make sense of memory. Represent and organise my own memories and their semiotic relevance both within my mind and in context of outside memory "trigger" stimulus.
So far I've been:

• sketching memories that I recall upon experiencing triggers in my day to day life.
• Using experimental photography and painting to look for methods of representation
  
• Anaylising the biological mechanics of memory formation and recollection.
• Creating memory triggers in the form of bottled "perfumes"
• Researching the history of memory representation in art

image from my sketchbook analyzing recollection and train of thought