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The Art of Memory
Memory Chips for the computer have evolved over centuries since the first carving and scratcing and embossing on surfaces. The Tableauxis a forerunner and in a sophisticated way so is the photograph, but more in the form of a memory bank. Today's artists are integratingthe photographic process with textures and various surfaces and objects and projecting information in order to trigger a response from the living memory
At the same time the life span of the photograph is measured. The speed and volume of data to be available means that a new scale of miniaturisation in circuitry will leave room only for information to be etched on a wafer thin chip. Therefore the photograph as a memory bank is now in its last wave before the super computer era matures. Already super chips are being programmed to render our libraries bookless, our office spaperless, our factories manless and our art galleries objectless.
Consequentry the memory chip may be alone survivor, capturing images that manifest how history and life was once lived. Meanwhile the works of three artists recently exhibited in galleries in Tokyo amplified the concept of the photographic process as amemory bank.
Tokio MARUYAMA's work are visual memory banks. They closely relate also to the memory chip. Each panel appears to be disital in origin but in fact it has a screen ofphotographic impressions. These have been magnified to the extent there is distortion and therefore details of the real world have been obliterated. Remaining is a series of blurred forms that string together as links in a net. This mesh is a code for the mundane and regular unformity programmed into the cities. Among the imput into this "computerised landscape his a rather sad collection of found-debris, of plastic, metal, wood and paper.Lodged in the perforations of the panels are also a series of forks from twigs with each prong sharpened to a point. They are a compass bearing and describe a radius of time and space. There are "keys" pointing us to take a look close-up, even on foot, to recharge thememory instead of staying all the time on a programmed corse.
From "Ikebana Ryusei", February '85 issue (Rodney O'Brien - An Austrarian journalist who lives in Tokyo)
