Confection For Memory
A piece generated from a few of my Dynaxioms on photography.
9/12/2001
Interesting to look at photos of New York showing WTC towers. You're reminded of the way something used to look, depicting a different time—sort of like looking at photos of \[Chicago\] from the 60s and saying "Look the Hancock Building isn't there." You don't think "God, that's before it collapsed." Photos are confection for memory, i.e. you can't avoid being seduced by them, causing you to succumb to them. You want to forget, but the beautiful photo haunts you forever. If you lost a great city, you should destroy all the old photos as well.
Interesting to look at photos of New York showing WTC towers. You're reminded of the way something used to look, depicting a different time—sort of like looking at photos of \[Chicago\] from the 60s and saying "Look the Hancock Building isn't there." You don't think "God, that's before it collapsed." Photos are confection for memory, i.e. you can't avoid being seduced by them, causing you to succumb to them. You want to forget, but the beautiful photo haunts you forever. If you lost a great city, you should destroy all the old photos as well.
2006. Photos are confection for memory; You can't avoid being seduced by them. You want to forget, but the beautiful photo haunts you forever. If you lost a great city, you should destroy all the old photos as well. [Anything can be reconstructed from memory, and gives room for innovation that wouldn't have been there in the first version]. (9/12/2001)
0023. Sometimes history books (and films) say more about history than history itself. Recording history is like remembering a dream--with fragments stitched together into a narrative that develops a life of their own.
Before it was celluloid
A record and a trace
A picture on a postcard
The fading of a place
We see with the eyes of the heart
Can you see me as I am?
Vision sacralized
The divining of a plan
Photos are confection for memory
You can't avoid being seduced
You want to forget
But the beautiful photos
Haunt you forever
Figments of imagination
Emulsion of emotion
Blurry on the edge
Zooming on a history
A mind is indelible
It wants to make it real
Double the exposure
Just to make it clear
I woke up this morning
With the TV watching me
It's America's history
And nothing but a scream
How can I know for sure
Whether you are really you?
It's not the photographs
It's the things you say and do
Photos are confection for memory
You can't avoid being seduced
You want to forget
But the beautiful photos
Haunt you forever
A record and a trace
A picture on a postcard
The fading of a place
We see with the eyes of the heart
Can you see me as I am?
Vision sacralized
The divining of a plan
Photos are confection for memory
You can't avoid being seduced
You want to forget
But the beautiful photos
Haunt you forever
Figments of imagination
Emulsion of emotion
Blurry on the edge
Zooming on a history
A mind is indelible
It wants to make it real
Double the exposure
Just to make it clear
I woke up this morning
With the TV watching me
It's America's history
And nothing but a scream
How can I know for sure
Whether you are really you?
It's not the photographs
It's the things you say and do
Photos are confection for memory
You can't avoid being seduced
You want to forget
But the beautiful photos
Haunt you forever
***
Original:
