The Synthetic-Memory Series


  • Photographer
    Clay Bodvin
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Company/Studios
    mixedmediums
  • Date of Photograph
    2011
  • Technical Info
    photomedia paintings

The Synthetic-Memory Series Work 1 - Maple Valley portrait in Remade Space #4 Work 2 - Watching target practice in the Poldi Pezzoli Memory Work 3 - Reading time in the Beaux Arts Memory #1 Work 4 - A cowboy in the Phillips Collection Memory #1 Work 5 - Kanab portrait in the Saint Jean Church Memory #2

Story

Engineered virtual moments.

Retracing the usable-past to expose threads of new visual narratives. Consider the still life painting.

In the late 1800s, the luxurious nature of peoples’ everyday things was stylishly depicted through commonplace objects and spaces - but rendered with exotic patterns and dramatic colors.

By using altered perspectives, de-constructed objects and un-real environments these paintings artfully recorded a fragmenting society.

Fast forward to now - where luxury has become the virtual consumer standard. The indulgence of the self is a global activity and the spaces people occupy morph at will from one style-construct to another.

The familiar objects with which we populate our lives cease to be concrete as our personal, self-contained place becomes boundless. Producing a growing dis-connect from the memories that define us.

My work seeks to continue the interplay the still life image has, as a token of its type, with these cultural and historical weavings. Dis-assembled spaces, dominated by disintegrating domestic objects, create tangible but non-physical realities to visually explore.

Extracted images, via selected chains-of-memory out of my usable past, are being merged with my newly created cultural recordings. Offering opportunities to re-connect with and illuminate my lived experience.

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