Solaris:Eclipsing Memory, Bill Albertini @ Alona Kagan Gallery
By Scott Weiland
Episodic memory is twice as complex. Time separates episodic memory from the procedural and structural. Time is of the essence and in this exercise, recall is organic. It bears the complexity of a world laden with temporal layers.
This is the fertile ground where Bill Albertini has located his recent work, called "Memory Index 1999-2004." This show consists of some six hundred images that Bill has been working on "episodically" since 1999. The images are derived from his memory of locations and sets from the 1972 film by Andrei Tarkovsky, "Solaris."
What Albertini ultimately finds salient in Tarkovsky’s films is what he refers to as the absence of "forced film time." The narrative action has an unforced pace, a logic that is very mundane and very often uneventful. If you have ever seen a Tarkovsky film you know what Albertini refers to.
Films often try to maintain a level of action or intrigue just beyond our expectations. Tarkovsky seems to make a point of confronting that implicit demand on the medium by letting our expectations out-pace the narrative events in his films. This is what we might consider Albertini means by "forced film time."
The plot of Solaris deals with characters confronting manifestations of their memories. Most of us never have to confront our memories outside of our own head. Episodic memories are often recalled over and over again without leaving our mental sphere. But what if those memories manifested themselves and we had to confront them in the physically present here and now? Solaris and Albertini’s project ask this same question.
After seeing Solaris in the 1970’s, Albertini collected, cultivated and developed images based on his memory of the film. He gathered what he calls the "core group," some 126 images, before seeing the film again. Once he had finally viewed the film again, he collected frames from the original that matched his "core group" of recollected images and edited the film stills he had matched to his own creations. To this matched set of images, he assigned a frame code, each matched set getting the same code. The code corresponded to the place in the film from which the matched image was taken. This group of images was shown together in 2002, after which Albertini took a break from the project.
When he returned to the work, he abandoned the notion that the time code should exist as an artifact, marking the place in the film where his original memories corresponded to the film. He also stopped looking at the finished "segment" of "Memory Index." The work at Alona Kagan Gallery was developed from not only the memory of the film but from the memory of the project up to that point. The original memory of the film had been replaced by the project in which it was contained. The memory of the room was now a memory in the room, ready to be recalled and placed into the world. And this can be seen throughout the show’s six hundred images.
While Solaris was recently remade by another director, Albertini’s work is in fact undergoing a similar shift. The remake is a repeat performance, granted, but a new interpretation, just as episodic memory recalled is always an instance unique from the original event. Episodic memory is intrinsically tied to our bodies, our minds, time and perception of change, motion and complexity. It’s a system of processing, rather than recording or scrutinizing. It isn’t something you can shelve for later, compartmentalize or place in a mnemonic system of rooms. Doors are the only metaphor from our common notion of architecture that seem to fit. Episodic memory is in essence a meme, a mirror of the world. Albertini’s work is as much a performance as any set of prints can be. But, if anyone were to infer that these prints were an objective documentation of something, well of course, that would be untrue.
