Please Call, Very Sentimental

Soumis par Joël Gauthier le mer, 03/16/2011 - 08:26

Auteur·e·s:

Please Call, Very Sentimental est une oeuvre d'Alicia Smith qui associe de vieilles photos trouvées dans un magasin d'articles d'occasion et une collection d'annonces relevées sur le site Web de petites annonces Craigslist. Les photos, disposées sur une table de bois, semblent avoir été prises dans les années 1940. Il s'agit de photos-souvenirs personnelles: famille, amis, voyages, etc. Lorsque l'internaute clique sur une photo, une main la saisit et la soulève, comme pour l'approcher de la caméra. Dans le coin inférieur gauche, une petite annonce laissée sur Craigslist apparaît alors. Toutes les annonces faisant partie de l'oeuvre se rapportent à des téléphones portables perdus contenant des photos ayant une valeur sentimentale. À travers cette oeuvre, Smith propose une réflexion sur l'archivage numérique de nos souvenirs: si le support change, les sentiments, eux, demeurent.

Au bas de l'écran, une barre de menu donne accès à un texte informatif sur le projet et à une liste de films du National Film Board of Canada abordant des thématiques similaires.

Infos

Site d'hébergement:

National Film Board of Canada

URL du site d'hébergement:

http://www.nfb.ca/

Date de dernière consultation de l'oeuvre:

16 Mars 2011

Groupe de recherche:
NT2

Citation(s)

Lost Samsung SPH-M610 (Skytrain Downtown) Vancouver Craigslist December 23, 2008 I love this cell. Hard to replace. Sentimental. Full of photos. Slim flip phone in leather case. Could have been in a small navy blue bag with rhinestones (also sentimental). Fell out of my pure on Skytrian on Monday Dec. 22/08. Reward if returned in working condition.

Discours (notes)

Photos are the tangible manifestation of memory. Our instinct is to run back into the fire or fight against the flood to save them. I began considering our emotional and physical attachment to photography after going into a thrift store in rural Manitoba. Among the furniture, crocks and oil tins, I found a Ziploc bag containing over 200 photos - the record of one family's experiences, spanning about five years in the 1940s. They were purchased "All for 10xx." For the most part, there is nothing exceptional about them. They capture bits and pieces of days; quite normal and boring things. It's our attachment that makes them interesting. Woven into the shots of babies, pets and self portraits is love, anticipation, longing, loss; the pull of family and home. The soft, faded prints seemed an ideal form for such attachments: their cracks and lines, their smell. Hands had torn and taped them back up. They had survived the world for over 60 years; appropriate vessels for the clumsy, imperfect, fagile-yet-strong predicament of being human. In an age where photos are increasingly less tangible - where a thousant unedited digital memories lives in a cell phone shoved into a pocket or thrown into a purse - what does this change in our relationship with photography mean? For all the advantages that mobile technology affords, it's hard to imagine these expendable plastic devices as the vessels of our collective memory. As I discovered on places like Craigslist, often people who lose cell phones couldn't give a damn about the thing itself. Desperation bubbles out of their posts in lonely, sad and charming vernacular - manifesting itself in all-caps, emoticons, and effusive punctuation - pleading that we "please call, very sentimental."

Recherche*

Répertoire

Please Call, Very Sentimental

Smith, Alicia