Memorabilis

iris open and shut  | memory is written | click
an event | captured in time | in tablets of stone
remember | dead of night | when electricity ebbs
who can see | what eyes forget | mind out of time

evidence | of the senses | superceded
everything recorded | external | eternal
truth | not needed | data becomes truth
faces to fit | names no longer | tip of the tongue

life | unlived | except by image
imagination | leap of thought | chasms
belief | unsustained | without reference
transfixed | who we were | immutable

time spent | arms around us | clocks and calendars
diary days | photo albums | imprisoned embalmed entombed
memory | random access | not in our heads
cloud storage | rain falling | rain remembered

beach with sea | men and women | pictured children
snapshot the hours | the past decays | alive by proxy
resuscitation | mouth on mouth | two dimensions
monochrome | desaturated smiles | look back in wonder

no signal | key swipe download | unlock upload
hourglasses progress | broken analogy | transferring
others not here | connected air | no-one touches
through the ether | collapsed distance | anaesthetised

dreams in boxes | across a planet | narrative lost
stories written | words on pages | tongues tied
speaking of which | paper shreds | amnesia
body language | unfelt feeling | dumb show

wires probe | waves and signals | gathering and gathering
typing clicking sharing | faces turn down | bread is not broken
mega giga tera | oceans of knowledge | drowned in data
hands reaching | out of touch | wisdom ignorant

phantom memory | a sullen art | dark technocracy
out of our minds | madness scribbles | furrowed brows
total recall | unfiltered worlds | infinity wallowing
history dismantled | rendered approximate | thought in codes

devices remember | in our fingers | the brain in neutral
lifetimes go by | no time to think | no need
damp squibs | misremembered lives | fizzle out
the moment alone | imprisoned forever | dies in chains

© BH 2015

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A different form from usual: working with the notion of memory and something more staccato to express it. (Try reading in a Dalek voice.)

I've felt for a long time that we've developed a kind of snapshot mentality. We all do it, I know. Pose for photos. Snap, snap, snap. I'm more convinced than ever memories captured like that are gathered while we absent ourselves from the moment.

The same goes for posts and emails. Now, we don't reflect on a significant experience then share it. We frantically recognise it as it happens then stop and share it at once.

It makes us the eternal being-behind-the-camera. Never in the moment because we're trying to catch it. More than this, it forces us to remember the moment captured more than the moment lived.

There's more about the above here. But suffice it to say, this is a piece which, rendered through 90 degrees, speaks as well of itself. So, read the 90º version.