Don’t get me wrong, our brains are brilliant. They can detect danger and keep us away from anything remotely scary. The problem is, they’re running prehistoric software in a 21st-century environment. And us, users are left to save positive input manually.
To illustrate this process I created Knockoff Immortality. The project started with the feeling of being celebrated on my 29th birthday that I simply refused to allow to die. As the tangible representation of that abstraction, I choose the bouquet from my Beloved. I took my sweet time separating the flowers and selecting then drying particular specimens. I recorded the whole process for good measure. I could have stopped there as the preservation stage was complete. But the surest way to immortality I know is becoming art.
This time I had a professional photographer in my studio to document the process. Very meta when it comes to a conceptual art piece about making an effort to remember a feeling. Under the watchful eye of the camera lens, I assembled 3 unique compositions sizing them to fit carefully chosen second-hand photo frames.
They would not last forever but neither will I. The physical representations of being appreciated are here to stay in the reality I share with others. But more importantly, I created a metaphor for noticing the positive feedback from the world and dedicating the time and effort to commit it to my long-term memory. A function not included in our automatic programming, but essential to our well-being in the times we live in.
