User:Loes van Dorp/Proposal

Proposal Loes van Dorp 2012

Working Titles:

To get and forget

In gedachte

Veranderlijk verleden

Verraderlijk verleden

I don't remember I forget

For my graduation project I am planning to make a short stop-motion animation with sound. In this animation I would like to visualize how a person deals with his/her memories while walking in a space.

To do so, the protagonist will be accompanied by a Plexiglas screen. On this screen the memories and thoughts appear and functions as a window to another world; to the world of memory and thoughts.

The person can influence what is on the screen by pushing/dragging it around in the space. By painting over the drawing or reshaping the paint he can change an unwanted memory into something nice. Is it possible to change the unwanted memory? Or will it keep coming back, haunting the protagonist. Maybe the memory wants to escape from the screen and has to be chased by pushing the screen around. When there is only black paint on the screen, the memory will then only become visible with the help of the protagonist, erasing parts of the black to reveal the memory.

To experiment with different point of views of one event I could use more than one protagonist. How will his memory influence the memory of the first person? Will it enrich the memory or make it change in an unhappy way? Will there be a fight over the accuracy of their memory?

This animation will have a narrative. To create a story I can use my own memories and that of others. There is also a possibility that I dive into the history of the space I will use. With help of people who have memories about that space and the researched history I will be able to create a layered story. It is also likely that I will combine the history of the building and my personal memories to make a fictional story.

By using a Plexiglas screen and stop-motion animation I want to try to show different times:

• The real time,
• The time of reproducing the memory
• The time in the story of the memory.

With this experiment I hope to be able to show a space, colored by a personal experience. Or show an event through different point of views.

This project is about things you want to remember, but somehow forget and things you want to forget but still remember. It also doubts the reliability of memory. Memories are pliable and have the unsettling ability to change shape afterwards. They are not like a library archive where you can look into a document and put it back without changing it. Memories are reshaped continually by obtained experience and knowledge.

Memories are present like ghosts, ghosts of the past which are following you wherever you go. Without memory, you will have no experience to build on. Memory is something that forms you in who you are and how you react in certain situations. Due to the fact that a memory of an event is always characterized by previous experiences, two people will never have 'the same' experience.

Our memory is dominated by 'forgetting'. The absence of forgetting will not define a better memory, but results in increasing confusion. You have to have a filter to make memories make sense and usable for the future. An affected memory is still a memory, but not anymore to what the original memory was. Therefore this is also a form of forgetting.

We write diaries to conserve events, thoughts and state of minds. We never write something down we do not want to remember. We don't have a forget book. Why should you write down something you want to forget?

Film and Photography are often used as metaphors in thinking about dreams and memory. We also use pictures to conserve unforgettable events, so we can use them to remember what we forget. Which often results in that we remember the picture of the event, not the event itself.

In Dutch Remembering is : Herinneren, Her -inneren = opnieuw in gedachten brengen, uit het geheugen opdiepen. What we remember is called a memory, but how do we call what we forget? There is no substantive for forgetting.

I am interested in the question how to show different times and stories in one image. There are also some interesting visual difficulties. How do I show something I cannot remember? How can I show the inner conflicts?

I want to explore the connection of the screen in my project and the theories about the 'screen memory'. Screen memory is a memory that is there to replace a memory you do not want to have. But how do I know which of the memories are reliable? Which are the screen memories? Suppressing Memory, False Memory, unconscious insincerity. But suppressed doesn't mean disappeared.

This project will be an attempt to portrait how memory is something we always carry with us and how a space can reveal its memories. It may show the unreliable nature of memories and how they change when getting older, having more experience. Or it will show how different people remember the same event very differently.