Maddening memories

A week ago I decided to generate some ideas through some practical means. An experiment I committed to was doing something as an experience that would be recorded. I would then wait over a certain amount of time and then recall what I remembered of it in quick succession. The pieces of the experience I remember would then be used to edit the recording of the experience and create a new video of just the remembered parts. This is to be compared to when someone recalls an experience in their head as they communicate to others.

I decided to use a television series I have been watching called Mad Men. I watched a new episode, waited a day, then wrote down in 5 minutes as much as I could of the episode. Elements to this were quite interesting. For one I wanted to get as much content down as possible so I imagined the people on the show, not in a particular plot point but just in a certain context. They would be doing something but I would not be remembering why and in relation to the scenes order of the episode. Something like a woman breaking a chair or a man standing by a door frowning. I also did not recall any sound in the memories, maybe their voice but nothing definitive  Something else that was interesting was everything I remembered I saw as being the same length in time. When editing the parts I remembered I found went from half a second to 30 seconds. The memory of the experience is compressed to an undetermined amount of time. Right now I only have rough cuts of the work but will refine it into how I remember remembering it.

One of the distinct recalls I had when watching.

I know there are a lot of variables that tampered certain parts of my result. As I am quite familiar with the characters so I could recall things pretty well. I also have the recording of what I was watching instead of a recording of the real time of me watching it. I am not doing it as a test to see how well I can remember it and what impacts there are of me remembering it. I am instead doing it to understand what my recollection of the experience looks like through recording technology. Its about the perspective. Taking our memory of the experience out of the context of our head and into a video.

A man frowning

I do know that my final project will not be just screen based work like this, I don't want it to be about video editing and just people watching a screen. It also won't be that personal which is something I need in my work. I see there being an interaction of some sort. I have been doubtful of the usefulness of experiment for my project so far and a little unsure as to what it is I am trying to get from it. I also think this is focused to much on memories rather than experience. I do want to get the most out of this work and give it a completion. I plan on having other people try the same experiment with the same video and make a video edit out of it as well.

References

Hunter, T. (n.d.). Mad Men. Mad Men. AMC.