“Possibly the most startling thing about our individual existence is that it is continuous… We have been living this same moment ever since we were conceived. It is memory, and to some extent sleep, that gives the impression of a life of discrete parts, periods or sections, of certain times or ‘highlights’…
If things are perceived as discrete parts or elements they can be rearranged. Gaps become more interesting as places of shadow…”
Bill Viola, ‘Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House‘
Whilst flicking though my research journal this evening, I happened upon the above quote which I first read several months ago. I was startled by what I read, particularly in light of what I wrote yesterday (‘From Dinosaurs to Human Beings’). This continuous existence which Viola speaks of, could be said to be that same existence of which we and all our ancestors are a part, and to memory and sleep as creators of ‘discrete parts’ or ‘highlights’ we might add ‘death’.
These discrete elements can be rearranged, and in doing so, gaps will inevitably appear (I’ve discovered as much through the process of walking and making notes of objects etc.) and it is these gaps, these shadows which I have been working with and in which I am most interested.