Monday 7 May 2012

The Loss of Memory

After visiting Frieze last year I went to Fitzroy Square to see Tracey Emin's work The Vanishing Lake.  A site specific installation displayed in a magnificent Georgian House and ran from 6th October - 12 th November 2011.

She looked into the mirror...
I made a fool of myself again.  A fool like a stupid child.  A child that has never known love...A sould that has never been touched.  Then she began to cry.
Knowing that everything is as it should be...
She was a fool.

It was all too late...The lake had gone...

The vanishing lake is not a metaphor...It is a real lake...it is small and magical looking...but only exists from autumn to spring...in the summer...it is just a dry barren bowl...
The only metaphor is often...This is how I feel.'

An extract from 'The Vanishing Lake'
Tracey Emin Autumn 2011

I don't know if it was the green paint on the walls or the location but this exhibition has been the highlight of my year so far.  Monoprints on cloth, past reminders of Emin's feelings displayed above large fireplaces and in small glass boxes.  There is something about the display that exposes Emin's more vulnerable side.


Last Great words 2011 8 1/4 x 11 11/16 in. (21 x 29.7 cm) Monoprint on paper

As I left the exhibition and walked around the corner there was bloody footprints and splashes of blood on the pavement.




I tried to find out what had happened but nothing had been reported - I did however find out that the actor Nick Moran was stabbed there a number of years before.
It made me think about the fragility of life and connecting these photographs to the sound of a fight I had recorded on a night out in Bath.




Screenshot from walk

I recorded the eight minute walk home on a normal camera not realising until I watched it back there were things happening that I don't remember.  After this I began to look a little closer at what I was doing.  These videos are out of my control and even though I am making them by pressing the record button, I cannot control events around me.  It is this randomness that I like.



I extracted the sound of the arguement and used the sound software on my mac to have a visual of what the words were like.


The words are 'calm down, calm down, calm down'






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