Memory Cluster departs from the surviving records and impressions of Dissolution Painting, a 24-hour durational performance created during a residence at Wasserschloss Reelkirchen in Northern Germany.

On June 7th 2024 at noon, I began painting on a tablet and did not stop for 24 hours. The action was live streamed through two simultaneous channels: the human condition — a physical stream following my body as it endured the task — and the mind/eye condition — the painting unfolding in real time from the digital canvas. The piece began and ended with a ritual. At the end of the 24 hours, I destroyed the painting. What remained were the recordings.

From this documentation, the installation was built. A canopy of layered translucent fabric hangs from the ceiling on stretched cables. Two projectors run generative video simultaneously through the overlapping layers, fragmenting the image into volumetric light at varying depths across the room. Archival footage and feeds from the painting process are recombined continuously. The recordings of a destroyed work, reassembling without resolution, unveil rhizomatic connections between memory, the unconscious mind and the act of painting. An 8-point surround soundscape was composed from captures made inside the Wasserschloss.

The piece responds to the passage of day and night. Natural and artificial light, shadow and the architecture of the room shift its character continuously. It is a site-adaptable work, brought into being by the presence of its audience and activated by performances.

Memory Cluster, 2024
generative multimedia installation, mixed media, HD video, 8-point spatial sound
variable dimensions