Summon Images 2013

The title of this body of work「喚相」in Mandarin Chinese has a double meaning of summon and exchange of images. This is an on-going project that I am afraid would never be fully completed. In an autobiography mode nineteen slices of important life fragments are presented as final images produced digitally. Yet each theme in the image begin with analogue photographs. They stretch from the photograph of me when I was one month old (also the first image that I recognized who I was) up to my classmates, coworkers, parents, wife and children, and inspirational objects that were recorded through analogue photography. These photographs are then embedded into movement of water flowing through stones representing the passing of time, a continuously flow that trickle through the analogue photographs. The indexicality characteristics of photography allows pictures to become keepsakes that directly link to the reality of the past. Yet I often find memories disintegrate and reform due to the course of time. New memories sculpt old ones and through the passing of time various details are forgotten or reimagined. The merging of analogue and digital images form a result of a memory, the combination of the “that has been ” recorded by the camera and digital alternations to reflect the current state of mind. Only when combined do they portray a piece of memory that the mind understands as a complete image or piece of memory. I also wish to extend this concept of memory reproduced through the merging of analogue and digital photography to a broader audience and therefore, the idea of interacting and exchanging memory was inspired. The segments in life that I choose to create resonate with daily life of people. My incentive is to use this project as a way to share, understand and record memory. People who resonate with the particular theme can provide their own photograph and keeping the element of stone and water as passing of time, I replace my analogue image with their photograph to create a new image. My hope is through sharing and discussing with each individual’s memory I can create a series that broadens from being a personal documentation and extends to a wider audience.