Snapshots of simultaneity

Snapshots of Simultaneity (2018)

Snapshots of Simultaneity was shown in a solo exhibition at George Paton Gallery.

A snapshot of simultaneity is a single observed event in time, space and timespace: four dimensional space. In Einstein's Theory of Relativity, it is the idea that an event exists in time relative to the observer.

Snapshots of Simultaneity (2018) compresses static social media images from one year into a single moving image. Transforming this group of images that narrate the passing of time, the model of ‘time as a series of images’, into a model based on measuring my personal relation to each image (my memory of it) and using that relation as a new dimension of time within the film. In doing so, I am trying to replicate the cognitive action of remembering, while also commenting on our digital avatars as a substitution for our own memory. My intention was to create a more accurate portrayal of my own digital past, in doing so, aligning my digital and actual memory into the same representation. 

The video is one year worth of images from social media. Rating each photo according to my actual memory of that event, it uses this rating to fade in and out through an algorithmic function. The fading aligns itself with the cognitive function of memory itself, thus making a new, perhaps more accurate, digital manifestation of that year. The audio plays music in unison from all of the concerts attended that year. Each concert is given a rating correlating to the memory of the event, and that number of seconds is played over the entirety of the work.

The film replicates the function and cognitive behaviour of memory. The images fade in and out, and are random in your ability to access them. The collection of visual memories morph into one another; the boundaries between them are blurred both aesthetically and chronologically.

Snapshots of Simultaneity (2018) investigates the digital avatar and social media's role in our memory of our personal histories. The dynamic relationship we have with our online persona is based on the dichotomy between real life and a digitally presented version of yourself. How does this curated version relate to the real self, and how much effect does it have on the memory of these events? Now that most of our life history is available on social media, what happens to our memory? Our photos can become a substitution for our own memories. Considering that our digital avatar may be a perfectly curated version of ourselves, not a representation of our true real selves, how does this affect our future?