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In the Back of my Mind
Original title: In the back of my mind
2008
Video installation: 8 videos, shelves, motors and DVD (colour, sound)
Dimensions: 30''
Variable dimensions
Reference: ACF0072
Edition: 1/2
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Our brain is like a great memory bank that stores thousands of images that our retina captures every day. Moreover, in today’s world, a world saturated with images, our archives of photographs, videos and images from the Web are growing all the time, occupying more and more space in our computers’ virtual memories. We live in this utopia of storing everything so that we can remember all we have seen, even the most insignificant things. However, the truth is, probably, that the more we archive, the less were member. Massimo Bartolini focuses on that residual memory that we keep but which we are not sure of recognising. In this work, entitledIn the Back of my Mind, the Italian artist refers to the feeling of having a memory on the tip of one’s tongue yet not be in gable to retrieve it. In this installation, which consists of 8 short video projections, Bartolini captures the memory of a series of incidents that he filmed with his tiny camera all over the world, from Beijing to Cologne, from Birmingham to New Jersey. He had preserved these images in his personal records for years as they form part of his experience, though he has forgotten the details. According to the Italian artist, «things happen every day, nice things with no under lying meaning». The carousel of images depict a variety of scenes: a piano tuner, a cement mixer, moths attracted to a lamp, a woman watering her garden, window cleaning, etc. Impressions of ephemeral beauty, sensations of moments lived, which Bartolini brings together to construct his narrative about memory.In the Back of my Mindis a visual metaphor of the brain, its two hemispheres represented by the two rotating books helves from which the eight videos are projected. These images revolve around the viewer, creating a feeling of disorientation. The images emerge and are juxtaposed at random, generating strange combinations reminiscent of those that form in our subconscious. Gradually, however, this movement builds up a continuity from the apparently unconnected images, creating a truly poetic, evocative experience.
