A Mirrored Memory By Tom Hussey
Tom Hussey is a Texas based photographer. He had produced a series of 8 images for a pharmaceutical company for their "Reflections" campaign.
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| http://www.tomhussey.com/#/SERIES%20%20/Reflections/3 |
Objects In Memory By Xu Neixiang
Xu Neixiang is a Suzhou based photographer. She had created "Objects In Memory" to memorialize her late grandmother's life. Xu Neixiang's work consists of her grandmother's belongings being frozen, and then photographed.
When explaining the piece she stated “Memories don’t have a permanent form. Remembering my grandmother’s face, I try to think about which one of her belongings contained the essence of her life. After she passed away, her room was still kept in the same tidy manner, the only difference being that that her fingers would no longer grace her belongings. Perhaps some of her memories are contained within the items…”
“Memories don’t have a permanent form. Remembering my grandmother’s face, I try to think about which one of her belongings contained the essence of her life. After she passed away, her room was still kept in the same tidy manner, the only difference being that that her fingers would no longer grace her belongings. Perhaps some of her memories are contained within the items…”
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| http://edge.neocha.com/photography/some-impressive-installation-works-from-suzhou-based-photographer-xu-neixiang/
Déjà Vu: Why Do We Have Memories From Nowhere?
"The French term deja vu can be translated as 'already seen.' However, even if we are insistently trying to recall exactly when we saw it, it is impossible. Deja vu is linked to several concepts: deja vecu - already experienced, deja entendu - already heard, and jamais vu - never seen. The last term refers to the opposite phenomenon of deja vu - when a person does not recognise familiar objects."
- A paragraph from an article I had read on www.learning-mind.com. You can find the full article here: http://www.learning-mind.com/deja-vu-why-do-we-have-memories-coming-from-nowhere/
The article talks about several forms of deja vu theories, and hypothesis, based on memories as well as your past life.
The Photography and Memory Experiment
After doing some secondary research on Photograph, and how it can relate to our memory, I had found an article titles "Taking photographs ruins the memory" Below is a short piece taken from the article. You can also find the full article with this link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10507146/Taking-photographs-ruins-the-memory-research-finds.html
(Taking photographs at a birthday or a wedding has become as natural as blowing out candles or cutting the cake.
But our obsession with recording every detail of our happiest moments could be damaging our ability to remember them, according to new research.
A study has shown that taking pictures rather than concentrating fully on the events in front of us prevents memories taking hold.
Dr Linda Henkel, from Fairfield University, Connecticut, described it as the "photo-taking impairment effect".
She said: "People so often whip out their cameras almost mindlessly to capture a moment, to the point that they are missing what is happening right in front of them. When people rely on technology to remember for them - counting on the camera to record the event and thus not needing to attend to it fully themselves - it can have a negative impact on how well they remember their experiences.")
THE EXPERIMENT
After reading more into photography, and how it can affect the memory, I have decided to try conduct some primary research into the subject.
The experiment will need two participants to take place. Participant A and Participant B, and for two days I will get Participant A to constantly take pictures of their day. Participant B will not be allowed to take any pictures at all, and that includes social websites such as Snapchat, Instagram etc.
After each day I will test both Participants separately on their memory. I will find out how much of their day, conversations, things they have eaten and more that they can remember.
After the second day I will calculate my results to see which Participant remembers the most.
RESULTS At the end of each day I spoke with both participants to evaluate their memory on what went on that day, and to be very specific with explaining each day. This is what they both had to say; https://soundcloud.com/dowan-barak/tracks After speaking to both participants I had found that participant A wasn't as specific as participants B. Although participant A did remember a majority of her day well she still had to think twice about each moment, and compared to participant B who was very specific with what went on and didn't have to think twice, participant A was affected slightly by photography. Although this experiment showed some result in photography decreasing memory it was 100% accurate, and the researched gained from it was purely for inspiration for this unit. |
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| http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/ |
Each Image shall project a past and present memory of each random passerby, whether it is one passerby or many, I will experiment with different techniques to get a variety of photos for my series.
An example of one technique that I will be experimenting with, and expired by Tom Hussey's "A Mirrored Memory", is the use of reflection to project a past memory of some one as shown above. I liked the whole concept of using mirrors to project a specific memory, and time in life, so I will be transforming that concept. I will use digital manipulation to create a ghostly presence, and past memory, of multiply people featured in the image.
I have been examining a series of photos in connection to reflections. Here is a site where I have found some inspiration for my series: http://photography.tutsplus.com/articles/100-creative-examples-of-reflections-in-photography--photo-6722
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| Inspiration |
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| Inspiration |
Another Idea that shot into mind was to over lay 2 images together through photoshop. The first image would be a subject such as a family member, close friend or even a stranger who has a story to tell. The second image will over lay the first image, and that will represent his memory. The second image could be anything related to the subjects memory. I'm looking more into this idea.
I managed to get the idea from helping a friend who studies photography. I helped her with a ego and alter ego project where she produced a long exposure images by having a long shutter speed.
This was just a practice image that I have as I cannot get my hands on the finished image yet.
I like the idea of having a long exposure image, but, I knew this wouldn't work well with producing the subjects memory. So the idea of over laying two images will work better, and create a similar effect as the long exposure image.
In some way I could make a long exposure image work, but we wouldn't see the subject in s/he present. The image would be an image based on s/he past memory.
He is some experimenting with long exposure images I took a while back that I liked, and gave me some inspiration.
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| Long exposure images. |
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| Both images are a part of my memory. |
Steve Pyke (Acts of Memory)
I was researching into my Time Art unit when I found out about this photographer called Steve Pyke. He had produced this photography piece, and that I found would be quite personal to him, based on his two sons.
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| Jack and Duncan Series |
In some perspective I see this as a memorial for himself for both his sons. Something that would bring back memories when seen.
On his website I had found a section based on "Acts of Memory". I noticed that all the pictures shown are collages of a variety of images. I've also noticed dates within the caption. I am assuming that these are acts of memory produced within those years presented, and shown all in one photo.
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| Acts of Memory 7, 1996 - 1999. |
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| Acts of Memory 8, 1999 - 2001. |
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