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memory

So this is supposed to be my artist's statement for this project, or rather, the guideline of the project, huh?  I dislike the idea of creating something based on my memory.  While it sounds perfectly ok like the impressionist ideology, somehow it is just not how photographs are shot.  Yes, I said shot, photography catches the ephemeral moment, not the past.  Even when we intentionally create an image, it is created for the moment, and it became the documentation and memory for the creation. 

However, we live in a world based on our previous experiences.  An experience from an event, no matter what kind, will always influence us experiencing another event.  Perhaps such idea is something I can work with in my photographic work.  For example, my dating experience with Jaime will forever change my perception to a red hair girl, to a feminist, to a young professional, or to Washington Court House.  (Ok, I guess I miss her a lot.)  Perhaps because of that I will stop by Washington CH one day and actually take a look of this whatever Ohio town; perhaps I will appreciate feminism and somehow change my view point when I look at a woman.

Perhaps, that is if I actually remember all these things.  I have gone so far and learned so much that I don't even remember what I have learned.  Most of the things I have learned seem to have lost their context, and they become mere facts that I know about. 

At the age of 18, I brewed my first batch of beer, and pretty soon I learned the appropriate characters for each different beer styles and even the characters of most hops.  At the age of 17, I roasted coffee from all around the world and mastered the espresso machine.  I still know what to expect for each farm and know what are their optimal roasts.  Before that, I learned to have perfect pitch and was conducting my own band...

Many years later I will be looking back again.  I will realize that I have been through more than most people in college.  Clinical, counseling, cognitive, social, developmental, and industrial/organizational psychology, sensory science and psychophysics, neuroscience, behavioral endocrinology, pharmacology, organic chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, genetics, immunology, and even animal surgery...  Sometimes I really wonder why I have studied all these, and, more importantly, where I am going.  But, nevertheless, even I don't seem to carry all these knowledge with me all the time, they are part of me, along with my music training, my experience with computers, and my daily culinary demands.

Summing up my random thoughts, my previous experience (my memory), has lost its context (and therefore has transformed from "episodic memory" to "semantic memory"), will somehow influence my perception of new experiences.  I guess my working ideology for this project will be "things out of context that resemble subjects of my other interests."

Eventually, all the things, all my memory and photography, including this web site, will lose their context and become each other, to me at least.

Jar's Photo, copyrighted, 2003.