Memory vs Forgetfulness
The “Fiction Cabinets” are individual explorations of the fiction, constituting extensions, oppositions and reinterpretations of the original concept. Each member
of the collective developed an audiovisual object from an interpretation of modern issues regarding memory, from which originated “Memory vs Forgetfulness”. 2 videos explore the realm of Memory and 2 explore Forgetfulness, its counterpart.
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Natural vs Technological
In a totally digital year, I made my once again, came to reflect on the different issues associated with the human psyche and the unconscious, where one of its main intentions is based on the strong parallelism between the human mind (the natural) and the computer (technological), and the way the glitches in the digital world can, in a way, be compared with the failures of
the unconscious of Man.
“Natural vs Technological” encourages a more established vision of a world where the supremacy of machines and wires is increasingly evident and overlaps with what is real. We stopped looking at each other's eyes, to give
the added value of a screen. A suggestive representation of
the real stage is made - the scenario of which we are the main actors, versus the digital stage - protagonist of the constant glitches that make it anything but natural.
Although the importance of this era is not put aside of technologies, it is essential to know how to find the limits. Forgetting human relations in favor of virtual simulations ends up falling into something without foundation.
In our digital age, emotional attachment to digital platforms causes an ambivalent relationship. If, on one hand, we seek comfort in already known contexts and memories, as our identity is increasingly based on «machines and memories made by machines» (Dyens 2001: 4), on the other hand, we do not have the freedom to put aside and forget. Will the immobility of digital memories allow us to forget?
*ELECTRA , N.o 8 Inverno “Desligar da rede: A influência da cultura digital
sobre a privacidade, a memória e a morte” — Carla Ganito
MarK Dery, “Velocidade de Escape”
David Chalmers, “The virtual and the real”
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I see myself...
In the fiction of I made my way once again, X seeks to rediscover their own identity by decoding a repressed memory. Along the way, the character struggles with memory lapses and finds it difficult to distinguish what is a real memory (the true story) and a false memory. But what if our “false” memories were, in fact, real experiences? What if every story we thought we had imagined had actually happened, for example, in a past life or in a parallel universe?
Starting from the concept of memory, "I see myself..." expands this notion and focuses on the multiple, the multiple stories and versions that constitute the self. Relating it to the digital age, each individual has multiple personas depending on the online platform, showing several records of the same life. These are parts of a unitary self, but they coexist at the present time.
The multiple stories are interconnected and contaminate
each other, constituting the individual's experience, just as
the fragments of past lives reappear in the present life ...
“I don’t experience, as you do, this feeling of a life
which is beginning, the stupefaction of a newly
commenced existence. It seems to me, on the
contrary, that I have always lived! And I possess
memories which go back to the Pharaohs. I see myself very clearly at different ages of history, practicing different professions and in many sorts of fortune. My present personality is the result of my lost personalities.”
Gustave Flaubert in The George Sand-Gustave FlaubertLetters,
HARRIS, Steve & FRANKS, Charles, 1921
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I am a house
In the collectively created fiction, I made my way once again,
we idealize memory and the unconscious, where it lives, as a physical and labyrinthine space, full of corridors and doors through which our persona, X, searches in the dark a lost memory, symbolized in a closed door. In this underlying fiction, “I am a house”, this analogy is expanded. Each of us is a home, everything in its interior belongs to us, our conscience is symbolized by a small fragile and flickering candle, surrounded by a huge darkness.
In this darkness there are corridors, staircases, doors, it is our unconscious, where our fears, instincts, forbidden thoughts and desires, as well as memories that we want to forget, or that we have already forgotten: memories repressed.
“I am a house”, questions the fiction of I made my way once again, asking the question: will it be truly possible to completely forget a traumatic life experience?
“Properly speaking, the unconscious is the real psychic; its inner nature is just as unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is just as imperfectly reported to us through the data of consciousness as is the external world through the indications of our sensory organs.”
Sigmund Freud, "The Interpretation of Dreams"
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There's no way to forget
Is forgetfulness what makes us humans?
In a digital age where the habit accentuates the automation of the senses, all causes have predictable consequences, no information is left to chance or because we forgot.
Forgetfulness is left behind, its existence is practically none from the moment when all the devices we face on a daily basis remind us of everything and do not let us fail at all, except the at experiencing the present time. In this way, a rhythm is created composed of recognizable sounds, human actions that reflect the action-reaction characteristics of machines.
Genuine moments hardly fit into this universe and are caught between the predictable and the repetitive. Even the possibility of remembering something we forget becomes a permanent memory. However, all of this turns us into beings forgotten of remembering, influenced by the constant rhythm of “reminders”, clocks, alarms, notifications, event reminders, contact galleries, photos with timed pop-ups that appear at the exact moment, mournings that are renewed every anniversary …
An automation that does not give us the right to forget.
"Without forgetting there could be no happiness, joy, hope, pride or the present time"
"Forgetting has become the exception, remembering has become the standard action"
"I thought that the magic of the information age was the possibility of knowing more, but then I realized that magic is the possibility of knowing less."
*ELECTRA , N.o 8 Inverno “Desligar da rede: A influência da cultura digital
sobre a privacidade, a memória e a morte” — Carla Ganito
A COLLISION BETWEEN A STREAM OF LIGHT AND AN OBSTACLE
DCVI | FBAUL | 2020