Commemoration, a range of poetic capsules designed by recent Kingston University grad Greg Smith, preserves nostalgia in a tangible realm. Smith’s airtight vessels “preserve traces of personal scents to trigger memories” after a person has passed away. The series puts a modern spin on conventional rituals like keeping cremated ashes in an urn. Smith’s prototypal design captures DNA without contaminating it. The DNA is then decrypted in hopes that one day a lost loved one could be genetically reconstructed.
“ You have your wonderful memories,” people said later, as if memories were solace. Memories are not. Memories are by definition of times past, things gone. Memories are the Westlake uniforms in the closet, the faded and cracked photographs, the invitations to the weddings of the people who are no longer married, the mass cards from the funerals of the people whose faces you no longer remember. Memories are what you no longer want to remember.
Photographer Murray Ballard documents the behind the scenes operation of cryogenics facilities. You won’t need a memorial if you never die.
Click on the photo to view the entire series on Ballard’s website.
Red Hook, Brooklyn. This scene reminded me of an Ed Ruscha painting, except for the memorial flower arrangement.
Photograph by Angela Riechers.
Photographer Annu Matthew’s project Re-Generation animates old snapshots by digitally adding images of new family generations into them, emphasizing how place can remain constant as time flows onward and people pass through.
Read an interview with Annu here. Click on the photo for the animated project series.
Street Ghosts
Artist Paolo Cirio’s project Street Ghosts pastes lifesized paper printouts of people accidentally captured on Google street view, onto the exact location where Google snapped them. They become part of the “real” landscape, at least as long as the paper lasts. Wouldn’t it be great to do something similar with Sites of Memory—install images taken from the stories around the city at the spots where they took place?
Georgian Eye Jewelry
“Eye miniatures came into fashion at the end of the 18th century. In France, where eye miniature seems to have originated, the eye as symbol of watchfulness was adopted by the state police for buckles and belts. In Britain it had a role as a love token, with some eye miniatures glistening with a trompe-l’oeil tear, or a diamond set to imitate a tear. Most eye miniatures are unsigned, due to the minuteness of the background, and often the name of the person whose eye is depicted is unknown.”
These layered portraits, from the series Misunderstanding Focus by Japanese duo Nerhol, focus on just three minutes of a subject’s life. Because it’s impossible to sit still even for 180 seconds, each one of the thousands of exposures is a little different. Carving through the huge stack of resulting images creates a combined photo/sculpture hybrid that seems to show time passing.
Click on the photo to read more.
