Bartolomé Payeras-Salom

Artificial Memory

Neutral landscapes, empty, almost at the verge of their existence. Remains of landscapes, like remains of memories, like remains of life. Spare landscapes practically useless, “the places of the memory”.

The construction of an “Artificial memory” as the only possibility to retain our memories. Relating every memory with the landscape where it happened, it would form the pieces of this structure that will bring us back, when we return to those places. Those passed moments that the speed of time takes away from us. 

The possible representation of a memory is its absence on an empty landscape. 

Sometimes the landscape becomes unreachable, like our memory, it becomes difficult to establish the limits, or perhaps we just have fragments of landscapes and we don´t know the real important fragments or the complete ensemble. In fact, the landscapes are endless. They are transient places through which we move as in real life. All memories have almost the same landscapes; the “artificial memories” are transferable. The landscape becomes a sort of screen, where memories are projected. This screen is always the same. If the landscape-screen reminds us of those memories, the memories in turn give meaning to the existence of the screen (landscape). 

The memories appear and disappear with us, and also our projection on the landscape. The impossibility of apprehending time, of every life, forces us to reproduce it somehow, so the history of any of us does not disappear. In our confusion we just try to recognize ourselves on this fleeting incomplete mirror.