A Maternal Memory Not Fully Recorded
super 8 projection with live audio accompaniment
A Maternal Record Not Fully Recorded , look at our attempts to preserve the past in home movies and photographs, and the disparity between the actual lived events and the mnemonic objects. Super home movies from the 1970s show my mother and myself as a toddler, blowing bubbles and riding horse back. The original super 8 footage was transferred to video, then filmed back onto super 8 from a television monitor in an attempt to translate the memories from medium to medium degenerating and deteriorating with each transfer.
There is an audio recording of the live performance on CD which can be played alongside the super 8 film in my absence.
Text:
That image of you horseback in wintertime
recalls the smell of oil paint and turpentine
mingling on the table
somewhere between a snack and a bridge.
there were days of oats and apples
and watermelon rinds
but we don't have a record of this.
will i remember oats and apples?
I remember picking blueberries
at dusk in late summer
there is no record of this
in albums or home movies
but I remember it clearly
when I press fresh blueberries
between my teeth.