memories that never formed

Photography is often made as an example of memory: all those
experiences of life, tucked away in the archive of mind. My motion
media installation 17523 Pictures contradicts that perspective.
It may be seen at Tower Fine Arts Gallery, 180 Holley Street,
Brockport NY, September 2 - October 7, 2008.

Here's the statement:

We privilege the visual sense, yet only those things most
important to us make the hop from short-lived, sensory
memory to permanent, long term memory. The vast
majority of our visual perceptions are never retained.
Among these experiences are the uncountable nameless
faces we've passed but will never remember. Less than
lost memories, they are memories that never formed.

Life is comprised of individuals. There have been so many
of us, so many lives, yet we scarcely notice this in our daily
routine. With this piece, my wish is to draw attention to how

selective our memories are and to suggest the enormous

scope and complexity of humanity.

the active recipient

One could perform an experiment of lifting favorite text from the
grid, copying it out onto an old sketch pad. A technique used in
'specters' might be employed, anticipating an image that's similar
to 'specters' , but different. Instead, unexpected secondary
features will be observed, a consequence of image processing
that provides ideal seeing. On this modern variant of palimpsest,
patterning as though from writings on a sheet above, now long
gone, is the prize received.