"I wish you could see my home. It's so exciting"
Morris Day
"The time is out of joint"
Hamlet
'Brass Waterbed' is a digitally animated video piece that draws inspiration from; memories, both false and otherwise; houses, homes, and properties; nostalgia and hauntology; and the music of Prince.
What can you remember about the past? How did you feel a year ago? What happened five years ago? Ten? Some of us keep some form of diary, but for most of us, the past is a foreign country. It is a truism to say our past shapes our present, and in turn, our future. This is true at a personal level and a wider societal level. So what does it mean if we cannot remember what we did or how we felt in the past? Does it shape us in the same way? Did we learn anything from it? How can we tell? What if we remember our past incorrectly? What if that didn't really happen?
I am making digitally animated recreations of every bedroom in which I have lived throughout my life. I am rendering the rooms in as much detail as I can recall. Where I can not remember, I leave spaces blank, make adjustments, embellishments, and reuse pieces and features from other rooms and memories. I have chosen the bedroom as site of some of our most personal memories. It is a recollection and rendering of furniture, fittings, and magnolia paint that will be familiar to many. I hope to evoke personal, architectural, and cultural memories, and how unfixed our memory of space is.
In doing so, I am a spectre passing from room to room, a ghost passing through digital space, walls, memories and time. 'Hauntology' refers to the return or persistence of elements from the past, as in the manner of a ghost. The ghost has no being in itself but marks a relationship to what is no longer (the traumatic, a compulsion to repeat, a fatal pattern) The future is also experienced as a haunting; that which has not happened but already impinges on the present. An attractor, an anticipation shaping current events.
What haunts us is not the past but the lost futures that we had anticipated. Is this how you thought things would turn out?
More broadly, has this persistence of the past taken away our capacity to conceive of a world radically different from the one in which we currently live? One that is not framed by the neoliberalism of the present or a nostalgia for a style of social democracy that is long gone. Writer Mark Fisher wrote of 'capitalist realism', "the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it"
Can we imagine a world where we have enough? Where we have a home and security? Where we can thrive?
The piece is influenced by Mike Kelley's 'Educational Complex' which also dealt with personal, architectural and cultural memory.
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"I wish you could see my home. It's so exciting"
Morris Day
"The time is out of joint"
Hamlet
Píosa físe beoite digiteach is ea ‘Brass Waterbed’ a tharraingíonn inspioráid as; cuimhní cinn, bréagach agus eile; tithe, tithe, agus airíonna; cumha agus hauntology; agus ceol Prince.
Cad is féidir leat cuimhneamh air faoin am atá thart? Conas a mhothaigh tú bliain ó shin? Cad a tharla cúig bliana ó shin? Deich? Coinníonn cuid againn dialann de chineál éigin, ach don chuid is mó dínn, is tír iasachta an t-am atá thart. Is fíor é a rá go múnlaíonn ár n-am atá caite ár n-am i láthair, agus ar a seal, ár dtodhchaí. Tá sé seo fíor ar leibhéal pearsanta agus ar leibhéal sochaíoch níos leithne. Mar sin, cad a chiallaíonn sé mura féidir linn cuimhneamh ar an méid a rinneamar nó conas a mhothaíomar san am atá thart? An múnlaíonn sé sinn ar an mbealach céanna muid? Ar fhoghlaim muid rud ar bith uaidh? Conas is féidir linn a rá? Cad a tharlaíonn má chuimhnímid go mícheart ar ár n-am atá caite?
Táim ag déanamh athchruthú beoite go digiteach ar gach seomra leapa a raibh cónaí orm i rith mo shaol. Tá na seomraí á thógáil agam chomh mionsonraithe agus is cuimhin liom. Nuair nach féidir liom cuimhneamh, fágaim spásanna bán, déanaim athruithe, maisiúcháin, agus athúsáidim píosaí agus gnéithe ó sheomraí agus cuimhní cinn eile. Roghnaigh mé an seomra leapa mar shuíomh ar chuid de na cuimhní is pearsanta atá againn. Is cuimhne agus rindreáil troscán, feistis agus péint magnolia a mbeidh eolach ar go leor againn. Tá súil agam cuimhní pearsanta, ailtireachta agus cultúrtha a mhúscailt, agus chomh neamhcheangailte is atá ár gcuimhní ar spás.
Agus é sin á dhéanamh, is taibhse mé ag dul ó sheomra go seomra, taibhse ag dul trí spás digiteach, ballaí, cuimhní cinn agus am. Tagraíonn ‘Hauntology’ d’fhilleadh nó do mharthanacht eilimintí ón am atá thart, mar a bhí i modh taibhse. Níl aon bhaint ag an taibhse leis féin ach marcálann sé gaol leis an rud nach bhfuil ann a thuilleadh (an trámach, iallach a athdhéanamh, patrún marfach) Tá an todhchaí gruama freisin; an rud nár tharla ach a chuireann isteach ar an am i láthair. Mealltóir, oirchill ag múnlú imeachtaí reatha.
Ní hé an t-am atá caite an rud a chuireann isteach orainn ach na todhchaíochtaí caillte a rabhamar ag súil leo. An é seo an chaoi ar cheap tú go dtiocfadh rudaí amach?
Ar bhonn níos leithne, ar chuir an marthanacht seo san am atá thart deireadh lenár gcumas domhan a shamhlú atá difriúil go hiomlán ón saol ina mairimid faoi láthair? Ceann nach bhfuil frámaithe ag neoliberalism an lae inniu nó cumha ar stíl daonlathais shóisialta atá imithe le fada. Scríobh an scríbhneoir Mark Fisher faoi ‘réalachas caipitleach’, “an tuiscint fhorleathan nach amháin gurb é an caipitleachas an t-aon chóras polaitiúil agus eacnamaíoch inmharthana, ach go bhfuil sé dodhéanta anois fiú rogha chomhleanúnach eile a shamhlú dó”
An féidir linn domhan a shamhlú ina bhfuil go leor againn? Cá bhfuil teach agus slándáil againn? Cén áit ar féidir linn a bheith rathúil?
Is ceisteanna iad seo atá ábhartha go háirithe mar shuíonn go leor againn inár dtithe, inár dtithe, inár n-árasáin agus inár seomraí leapa, ag fiafraí cad a tharlóidh ina dhiaidh sin. Tá súil agam go soláthróidh an píosa seo uillinn nua smaointeoireachta do na ceisteanna seo.
Tá tionchar ag ‘Educational Complex’ ón ealaíntóir Mike Kelley ar an bpíosa a dhéileáil le cuimhne phearsanta, ailtireachta agus cultúrtha freisin.