Joowon Jung

A person's memory is efficient and has no affection. Memories that are not often recalled are relentlessly extinguished by new memories. Even a very precious memory. What does memory mean to humans? The concept of the conscious "I" is also a sum of memories. To dig deeper into the idea of identity values, we have no choice but to rely on memory, because our life of experience eventually built up with memory.

When memory tends to worsen with age, the memory decreases rapidly when dementia occurs. In other words, one of the early symptoms of dementia is not recognizing information about yourself or a close family member, so you may not know who you are or your family. The consciousness of dementia patients gradually collapses, and it becomes difficult to live an everyday life alone. And in severe cases, they react like a child.

The reason for the decline in memory is that it is difficult to form new synaptic neuron junctions that connect nerve cells between neurons as they get aging. Another reason is high stress. Research has already shown that increased levels of the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol promote nerve cell damage. Another reason for memory decline is in the hippocampus on both sides of the brain. The hippocampus is the central nerve responsible for memory and learning. What one sees, hears, and feels is remembered in two curved hippocampus, 1 cm in diameter and 5 cm in length. However, brain nerve cells in the hippocampus begin to be destroyed little by little from the moment they are born, and the rate of destruction rapidly increases after 20 years of age. About 3600 memory cells disappear per hour, and one memory cell creates several neurites, and if you make a lot of these neurites, you can take over the role of memory cells. However, there are still many ways to slow the progression of dementia, but there is no concept of cure because it is a degenerative disease.

The image of my grandfather never changed. Grandfather and grandmother never get old in my mind. It is frozen in what I had seen when I was about ten years old. After he fell once, he began losing his memory. Even if I was a doctor, it is a disease that modern medicine cannot fix. However, I didn't want to ignore it thinking like, 'It's natural to grow old, and we're all faced with this kind of process.’. I made a work on how to make me remember more warmly and euphemistically. My face will be on one side of his closet, and whenever he opens the closet door, he will see me.

Memory moves to the digital storage

In the past few years, the way memories and documents are kept has changed. Now is the time of converting everything to digital. Signing and stamping documents and sending them by post mail are mostly done by email. Even classes are now with an online form. Isn't the era of memorizing phone numbers past? This era is always ready to record. Even if it's not a special place, we take out our smartphone when we see situations and things we want to remember. Thanks to that, everyday memory stays on the smartphone, making a record rather than experiencing it, and later looking at the digital memory and making memories.

Sometimes people experience for memory, then give stories on that. People even manipulate the memory. It is now common to yield memorable moments to camera lenses first. I don’t need to name them ‘people’ because I did that, too. (Instagram, facebook-cover photo-it was four days of raining Bohol trip, and It was 15 minutes, short moment of clear sky. And I did spruce up). At one time, I wasn't looking for a place where I could experience a good experience, but rather a place where I could ‘record’ a good experience. To record a chapter of memory as a bookmark for later retrieval, the record and sharing act itself has become too often the greatest motivation for the experience.

Donald Norman's book ‘Turn Signals are the Facial Expressions of Automobiles’ tells the story of a parent who is busy watching a children playing at an elementary school drama event and cannot appreciate the play. They would have been able to go home to play the taped tapes and only then watch the children play on the screen. He also expressed concern that people may not be able to leave memories in their heads and minds when people prioritize digital recording over experience. Linda Henkel, a psychology professor at Fairfield University, experimented with the participants in an art museum. Participants were asked to take photos of 15 of the 30 works and to not to take the rest. On the next day, a questionnaire was asked about the names and characteristics of each work, and it was found that they remembered the work without a picture better than the one with a picture. Professor Henkel calls this the ‘photo-taking impairment effect’ and pointed out that people expect the camera to remember for them, so they don't even think about to remember it at all.

We say it's an unforgettable memory when describing a satisfying experience. "Unforgettable" is recorded as an image. And the bigger the process gets, the fewer memories remain in the head. A record of experience that is not focused on the atmosphere, feelings, and stories of the day with the people they shared is only a memory of little significance to recall later on. Failure to fully appreciate the present happiness may lead to a loss of joy. Not savoring enough of the present happiness may be missing it because no matter how beautifully it was recorded, there is no emotion then.

In this video, 새폴더is new folder in Korean. This is a video of me looking inside of the folder, where and what is stored, or what photos are stored in the 새폴더 (new folder). I collect photos and videos. Despite the limited storage space, I thought it was definitely worth saving back then. But If I didn't take the time to look on it, it is like nothing. Perhaps it is because the folders were not named and left as a new folder. After all, this is no different from the valuables in the garbage bag. The previous sentence was not only written as a metaphor, but it also happened to me. When I moved the studio from FMI building to Moesstraat, I put my cables in a trash bag. The large 'proper bag', such as the Albert Hein bag and the IKEA bag, had to carry a monitor and a Mac mini, so the extra cables had to go in a garbage bag. And within a few days, the bag was thrown away after being handled as garbage. I think It's the same with memories. If I don't look and cherish memory again, then the genuine memory is lost.

One thing to add on about the effect on the video is that I want to express 'what memories of the past moment remain to me now'. The more accurate it is, the less the subjectivity and emotion will enter. And there is no reason for personal experience should be recorded in an accurate and immutable form in pixels and frames unless the act of recording in everyday life is to leave evidence or to prove something. So that I add effects on each one of them.

When the information you remember is faded and cannot be clearly explained, you may need to check the Internet or stored information again to make it clear. While showing the existence, the question is, is there an absolute reliable medium? At least I can say, ‘Not for me’. That is why I try to record more obsessively by knowing that I will lose in the future.