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Date
Title
Source
Description
Tags
W5261
12.10.2012
Memory Confetti - Stephen j Shanabrook / Veronika Georgieva
WWW
  • STEPHEN j SHANABROOK / VERONIKA GEORGIEVA MEMORY CONFETTI The project MEMORY CONFETTI consists of two parts: through various social network sites we will introduce the project and request the public’s time based participation in sending us imag ...

    STEPHEN j SHANABROOK / VERONIKA GEORGIEVA MEMORY CONFETTI

    The project MEMORY CONFETTI consists of two parts: through various social network sites we will introduce the project and request the public’s time based participation in sending us images that will be turned into 35 mm slides. These slides mixed with news images from the present are then mechanically shredded in a food blender into a state of “chaos”. The slide pieces are then mixed with mineral oil and circulated through a plexiglass ”viewing chamber”. As these tiny shards of slide image tumble through the chamber, a video camera records their movements. The result of the Part # 1 is an internet based movie, preferably shown on specifically built website. Part # 2 is the 6-screen installation. The installation will include six ”viewing chambers” and six cameras. The same technic of shredding slides will be used here as well. Each unit will have digital projector showing the cascade of images enlarged and in real-time. Each unit will have a title and its own selection of images, which will be listed alongside the projection. The projections will be placed next to each other making one continuous seamless 48 x 8 ft. image.

    One of our primary interests in art making is the pursuit of beauty in unusual places - on the border of extremes. Influenced by Martin Kippenberger, especially such a kind of gestures when the artist covers his rusted car with oatmeal (Capri by Night), our art combines a very wide spectrum of materials and the practice to deconstruct the original form, often by physical force in order to create another. These new others often add beauty and a new disturbing meaning to substances otherwise associated with comfort and happiness - chocolate, toys, cotton candy, magazine pages etc. MEMORY CONFETTI is both a continuation and a break from the past where weddings, birthdays and other “happy” personal moments are overlapped with news images of war, crime, money etc. This project is inspired by book and the movie: an earlier movie of Michael Haneke “71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance” with its’ fragmented storyline, several unrelated stories in parallel and a lot of news footages of real events also unrelated to the main storylines. And book by Gilles Deleuze “Cinema2. Image-Time”, where philosopher writes: “Memory is not in us; it is we who move in a Being-memory, a world-memory”.

    One remembers how mesmerizing in childhood it was watching the fish in a fish tank, nearly transparent with a thin ribbon of excrements going through their bodies. It was almost like being exposed to the secrets of life. The pieces of slides swimming through mineral oil in MEMORY CONFETTI are similar, – the image pieces passing one another, overlapping, changing their meanings depending on the combinations, which are infinite. It is like being exposed to the secrets of memory. MEMORY CONFETTI is a model of collective memory. The subject of collective memory isn’t new to the arts, but this innovative technic and artistic form as well as involvement of social network and internet take the exploration to a new visual and social levels.

    MEMORY CONFETTI is interactive, visually striking video project. It opens very important dialogue about alienation of human being in modern society and what kind of role memory is playing in it. Especially with new recent phenomena of social networks, which produce non-stop stream of images, broken fragments of our collective thoughts. We hope by participating in and watching this installation the viewers will see, understand and feel connections between each other and the rest of the world. Also the importance of knowing what to remember and what to forget, in a stream of information which is impossible to escape, but would be great to know how to configure.

    STEPHEN j SHANABROOK / VERONIKA GEORGIEVA MEMORY CONFETTI The project MEMORY CONFETTI consists of two parts: through various social network sites we will introduce the project and request the public’s time based participation in sending us imag ...

    STEPHEN j SHANABROOK / VERONIKA GEORGIEVA MEMORY CONFETTI

    The project MEMORY CONFETTI consists of two parts: through various social network sites we will introduce the project and request the public’s time based participation in sending us images that will be turned into 35 mm slides. These slides mixed with news images from the present are then mechanically shredded in a food blender into a state of “chaos”. The slide pieces are then mixed with mineral oil and circulated through a plexiglass ”viewing chamber”. As these tiny shards of slide image tumble through the chamber, a video camera records their movements. The result of the Part # 1 is an internet based movie, preferably shown on specifically built website. Part # 2 is the 6-screen installation. The installation will include six ”viewing chambers” and six cameras. The same technic of shredding slides will be used here as well. Each unit will have digital projector showing the cascade of images enlarged and in real-time. Each unit will have a title and its own selection of images, which will be listed alongside the projection. The projections will be placed next to each other making one continuous seamless 48 x 8 ft. image.

    One of our primary interests in art making is the pursuit of beauty in unusual places - on the border of extremes. Influenced by Martin Kippenberger, especially such a kind of gestures when the artist covers his rusted car with oatmeal (Capri by Night), our art combines a very wide spectrum of materials and the practice to deconstruct the original form, often by physical force in order to create another. These new others often add beauty and a new disturbing meaning to substances otherwise associated with comfort and happiness - chocolate, toys, cotton candy, magazine pages etc. MEMORY CONFETTI is both a continuation and a break from the past where weddings, birthdays and other “happy” personal moments are overlapped with news images of war, crime, money etc. This project is inspired by book and the movie: an earlier movie of Michael Haneke “71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance” with its’ fragmented storyline, several unrelated stories in parallel and a lot of news footages of real events also unrelated to the main storylines. And book by Gilles Deleuze “Cinema2. Image-Time”, where philosopher writes: “Memory is not in us; it is we who move in a Being-memory, a world-memory”.

    One remembers how mesmerizing in childhood it was watching the fish in a fish tank, nearly transparent with a thin ribbon of excrements going through their bodies. It was almost like being exposed to the secrets of life. The pieces of slides swimming through mineral oil in MEMORY CONFETTI are similar, – the image pieces passing one another, overlapping, changing their meanings depending on the combinations, which are infinite. It is like being exposed to the secrets of memory. MEMORY CONFETTI is a model of collective memory. The subject of collective memory isn’t new to the arts, but this innovative technic and artistic form as well as involvement of social network and internet take the exploration to a new visual and social levels.

    MEMORY CONFETTI is interactive, visually striking video project. It opens very important dialogue about alienation of human being in modern society and what kind of role memory is playing in it. Especially with new recent phenomena of social networks, which produce non-stop stream of images, broken fragments of our collective thoughts. We hope by participating in and watching this installation the viewers will see, understand and feel connections between each other and the rest of the world. Also the importance of knowing what to remember and what to forget, in a stream of information which is impossible to escape, but would be great to know how to configure.