My project is about memory. Memory is something that we cannot control. People are overly optimistic about the accuracy of memory. But we are not actually free to choose how we transform raw data into interpretation. With this in mind it is easy to understand why people can be so certain of their memories despite the distortion. They are not aware of having “altered the facts”.
I first became interested in the topic when I read an article about the unreliability of eye witness testimony. A woman was attacked and, through eye witness testimony, a man was arrested. Luckily for him he had a watertight alibi; he was on live TV when the incident occurred. Eventually, the investigators discovered that the rapist had attacked the woman when she was watching TV -the very program on which the man(who was arrested initially) was on. The woman had encoded his face in her mind due to the trauma. I was shocked to discover how powerful and mysterious the human memory can be.
These types of distortions happen, on a smaller scale, in our everyday lives. We can remember a face of a person but the location is lost. We can remember and object but the rest is blurred. We get confused events and overlap the images in our mind. “Each witness extracts an interpretation that is meaningful in terms of their own beliefs, experiences and needs.” I woke up one morning after a night out and all I could remember were people’s faces and the strange 70’s wallpaper from the venue. This translated to my work. The wallpaper signifies the memory lost or distorted.
“Memory has a multitude of quirks and inaccuracies that creep into its everyday operation.”
Each witness extracts an interpretation that is meaningful in terms of his own beliefs, experiences and needs.
We are not free to chose what we remember meaning that the transformation from raw data to interpretaion occurs automatically and outside violation. This is why people can be so certain despite th distortion.
Experimentation/Research:A couple of photographs i played with on photoshop to create an effect of lost memory. The memory may be dark or blurred but you can remeber a specific item or person realy well. I highted watercans or passers by in the photographs to try an create this effect.
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