Memories of the Cruel Radiance

Abstract

The chapter engages with a specific photograph as well as a computationally based project about the representation of missing childhood memories. Over several years, the author created sensory systems deploying mild electric shocks and feedback loops, which altered an image in ‘real time'. The focus of the work is an exploration of the notion that memory is not an exact replica of events but is pieced together in a dynamic process that is strongly influenced not only by past experiences but by social and political contexts, by photography, and by other media. The practice aims to establish a theoretical framework for embodied autobiography while also creating installations that have communicated auto-biographical content via sensory photography technologies, which the author calls autopathography. It should be emphasised that although the author's own memories (and one family photograph) are the focus for this work, it is not a discourse on individualism, exorcism, or ahistoricism.