Monuments to Real Life Monument 2. Twins Digital Video installation research phase began Autumn 2008 in Nuertingen Germany and was aborted in May 2009.
Monument 2. ‘Twins’ is the unrealized sibling to Monument 1 ‘Well I Never…’ 2007(www.wellinever.org) Where Monument 1 mapped individual memory stories, fragments of emotional history scattered throughout the town of Pontypridd, south Wales, as autonomous stories, Monument 2 would map sites dotted in and around Nuertingen, Germany. The core question that linked the two projects was, can private personal memory be performed by and through various formats of short-films and in turn relate to the construction of a collective memory and therefore sense of ownership of place for the inhabitants of a town. The artist was interested in private perspectives of past event or events that would be judged as non news worthy; Stories which were alive in the individual psyches of the town dwellers but which had never been articulated in the public sphere. In particular the artist sought memories of place that had strong emotional resonance, memories that were activated at moments when the person happened to pass by the location in which the story occurred, be it the river, the bus stop, the park or the canal path. Project Aims The primary aim of the project being to encourage a sense of ownership of space through imaginative engagement with place that cuts across the monopolising of space by consumer culture. This primary aim is underpinned the following objectives; 1. Create an archive of memory stories of place; a collection of fragments ofthe town’s emotional history. 2. Explore the possibilities of filmic interpretation of memory in the short film form potential of the medium to recall the real is curtailed. 3. Blur the boundaries of art practice, community, public and fine art.
Monuments to Real Life Monument 2. Twins Digital Video installation research phase began Autumn 2008 in Nuertingen Germany and was aborted in May 2009.
Monument 2. ‘Twins’ is the unrealized sibling to Monument 1 ‘Well I Never…’ 2007(www.wellinever.org) Where Monument 1 mapped individual memory stories, fragments of emotional history scattered throughout the town of Pontypridd, south Wales, as autonomous stories, Monument 2 would map sites dotted in and around Nuertingen, Germany. The core question that linked the two projects was, can private personal memory be performed by and through various formats of short-films and in turn relate to the construction of a collective memory and therefore sense of ownership of place for the inhabitants of a town. The artist was interested in private perspectives of past event or events that would be judged as non news worthy; Stories which were alive in the individual psyches of the town dwellers but which had never been articulated in the public sphere. In particular the artist sought memories of place that had strong emotional resonance, memories that were activated at moments when the person happened to pass by the location in which the story occurred, be it the river, the bus stop, the park or the canal path. Project Aims The primary aim of the project being to encourage a sense of ownership of space through imaginative engagement with place that cuts across the monopolising of space by consumer culture. This primary aim is underpinned the following objectives; 1. Create an archive of memory stories of place; a collection of fragments ofthe town’s emotional history. 2. Explore the possibilities of filmic interpretation of memory in the short film form potential of the medium to recall the real is curtailed. 3. Blur the boundaries of art practice, community, public and fine art.