Digital Memories

I've been thinking a lot about memory and how much we've come to rely on technology to be that memory. On one hand, this has become absolutely necessary; there is too much information in the world for anyone to be knowledgeable about it all. And yet, it seems that we don't just use computers and search engines for the things beyond our grasp but rather let them do all of the work for us because it's easier and faster than trying to remember anything on our own. We simultaneously have the joy of endless information at our fingertips and the disaster of allowing that ability to develop into a lazy habit. With this ability to instantly gratify any whim, I think we tend to filter less out. With the dawn of photography, we began to think slightly less about the details that might be included or excluded from a painting. With the digital age, the care that was still put into a single exposure dramatically plummeted once again. Without the expense of film and paper, the need to edit the exposures no longer exists. And without the need to edit, we lose the need to take any care in the creation of the photo itself. I've decided to make a painting that takes such a careless photo and turns it into a labor intensive painting, translating each pixel by hand from computer to panel. In doing so, I'll be forced to study this picture --this memory-- in minute detail -- spending far more time on it than I would ever have done otherwise.