r e _ c o l l e c t i o n

by: Michael Takeo Magruder - 10.2005

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Requirements:

[ version for PDA ] internet browser, Flash 6+ plugin, colour display with ≥240x320 resolution, and stereo audio.

Context:

The desire to be remembered has always been a part of the human condition. Society has forever sought to devise a form of memory that would outlast our corporeal selves. The adaptation of binary, the universal language and cornerstone of the digital system, has afforded us yet another path towards attaining this most elusive of aspirations.

Binary and its descendent technologies now permeate the entirety of our social strata. They coexist with us, in our hands, at all times and in all places. We sample, organise and archive, creating personal repositories for our recorded lives. We distribute these, our digitised memories, trading fragments of our most intimate experiences with strangers. Human memory is stored in machine memory, retrievable in an instant; while networks facilitate the juxtaposition and blending of these finite narratives.

Do individuals inherently seek to place their personal accounts, each transient and subtly unique, within a universal context? Are the instruments we create to mediate this process intrinsically imbued with such underlying intentions?

Re_collection is the product of one of the most ubiquitous technologies - the mobile phone. A captured moment, precious and instilled with personal significance, provides the exclusive source material for the artwork. The recorded sequence - stripped of resolution and apparent depth, has become depersonalised, reduced to a minimalist aesthetic that reveals archetypal forms and the inherent emotional connotations they evoke. Through this purposeful paring back of detail the divisions between personal and universal are questioned. It is a search to reveal the underlying ‘truth’ to these, our most intimate of recollections that exist between dream and remembrance.

Process:

[ 08.05.2005 : Hyde Park, London, UK ] A subject was recorded without direction utilising only a SVP c500 smartphone as a cinematic device. From the resulting material a single 14 second audio/video stream was extracted and used (with only minor editing/manipulation) as the exclusive source material for the artwork.

Without Whom:

Gabrielle Mina Magruder [ context + inspiration ] : Jo-Anne Green & Helen Thorington [ critique + distribution ]