Law of Loci (1998-99)
1998-99
B&W Print | Each: 11"x14"
This work was made between 1998 and 2000. Law of Loci is the title of a mnemonic device of the same name invented for orators by Cicero. When remembering a speech the speaker would divide up his or her text and assign a part to a particular room in a house that he or she was familiar with. The different sections of that part would be assigned to different pieces of furniture or objects in the room. When the orator gave the speech it simply became a matter of moving through the room in his or her imagination to remember what was to be said. During the year 2000 my father was home bound because of an illness. He lived in the house that I was raised in. It was our parents dream house. I realized that when he died the house would go with him. So each time I visited him I photographed the house and him. I made the pictures with what was called a prism. This device was also used in Shot-Reverse-Shot and Writing, Drawing and Painting. It is a device used by neurologists and ophthalmologists to measure the deviation of the eye after a stroke or trauma. When this device is quickly moved in front of a camera it causes a dynamic condition to arise. I wanted to use this device to make the pictures because i wanted to talk about time but also I wanted to look at the representation of memory in a new way. Not as a fuzzy or telescoped image but as a re-categorical phenomenon. Memories are built and assembled.