Video still from: I'm Filling in the Holes digital video from Hi-8 tapes 2 minutes 28 seconds 2008
video link: ://vimeo.com/4476846/
Statement:
This series of blurry clips taken from personal home video footage shot on Hi-8 tapes is intentionally arranged to draw attention to the fragility of memory, both human and technological. Often, our first memories are not ones that we created for ourselves, but are actually documented events that we view later. The work is presented on a cathode ray tube television, as that is how I remember experiencing this footage for the first time 20 years ago. What we think that we know from firsthand experience can turn out to actually be something we were told repeatedly at a young age.
portfolio website: http://annapeters.us/
Peer Reviews
1
Peters’ work urges the viewer to consider the source and accuracy of their childhood memories. Are those memories based in original neural signals stored at the moment of experience, or are they based on later mediations of that original experience? The piece presents a selection of video clips that may serve as the latter. The degraded quality of the medium, as well as the poor technical quality of the focus foregrounds the ephemerality of the material, while also suggesting that it doesn’t take much to launch a memory. The work further engages with the topic of the exhibition because the viewer cannot be sure of the legitimacy of these videos as true childhood clips. Are these captured memories genuine or constructed specifically for us? I recommend the work be included in the show.
2
Peters’ work strongly represents the “fragility of memory”, something we commonly trust as being firm and honest. For an exhibition like Accepted Knowing, work commenting on the creation of memory is paramount. In this video, these personal images might remind the person connected to them, of the events being depicted. The footage could create memories that the individual accepts, because of the video evidence. This produces a kind of personal legend or mythology. This work, edited from purely subjective images, and made to reference perceived memory, story or storytelling, and personal history, is intelligently executed.
